Uranium « nuclear-news

Iran could resume enriching uranium within months, UN nuclear watchdog boss says

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CBS News in an interview on Sunday that Iran’s capabilities to resolve any damage to its nuclear program do not appear to have been wiped out.

30 June 25, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-30/iran-could-enrich-uranium-within-months-iaea-says/105475434

In short:

Iran could resume producing enriched uranium in months, according to the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

Rafael Grossi from the International Atomic Energy Agency has raised more doubt about the efficacy of the US bombing of key Iranian nuclear facilities.

What’s next?

US President Donald Trump has suggested individuals could be prosecuted if found responsible for leaking a classified report that also cast doubt on the success of the US strikes.

Iran could resume producing enriched uranium in months, according to comments made by the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog that have raised more doubts about the efficacy of US strikes on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Officials in the United States have repeatedly stated that the strikes on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities “obliterated” them, although President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing the Middle Eastern nation again if it was enriching uranium to worrisome levels.

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CBS News in an interview on Sunday that Iran’s capabilities to resolve any damage to its nuclear program do not appear to have been wiped out.

“The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” he said.

“Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”

US officials also obtained an intercepted phone call between Iranian officials appearing to suggest the government in Tehran believes the US strikes were less devastating than expected, according to a report from The Washington Post.

In an interview on Sunday local time, Mr Trump also suggested that his government would look to investigate and potentially prosecute individuals found responsible for leaking an internal, preliminary classified report that cast doubt on how successful the US strikes in Iran were.

“They should be prosecuted. The people who leaked it,” the president said on the Fox News US.

“We can find out. If they wanted, they could find out easily.

“You go up and tell the reporter: ‘National security, who gave it?’ You have to do that, and I’ll suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”

Mr Trump’s interview with Fox aired as his “Big Beautiful Bill” cleared a procedural hurdle in the US Senate, before it entered a 10-hour debate process.

The US strikes came after Israel said this month it wanted to remove any chance of Iran developing nuclear weapons, launching its own attacks on Tehran that ignited a 12-day war between the two countries.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Mr Grossi said the US strikes on the three Iranian sites had significantly set back Iran’s ability to convert and enrich uranium.

Western powers, however, have stressed that Iran’s nuclear advances provide it with an irreversible knowledge gain, suggesting that while losing experts or facilities may slow progress, the advances were permanent.

“Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology,” Mr Grossi said.

“So, you cannot disinvent this. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have.”

Mr Grossi was also asked about reports of Iran moving its stock of highly enriched uranium in the run-up to the US strikes and said it was not clear where that material was.

“Some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved,” he said.

On Friday, Mr Trump scoffed at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s heated warning to the US not to launch future strikes on Iran, as well as the Iranian supreme leader’s assertion that Tehran “won the war” with Israel.

Mr Trump said the ayatollah’s comments defied reality after 12 days of Israeli strikes and the US bombardment, and the US president suggested the comments were unbecoming of Iran’s most powerful political and religious figure.

“Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth,” Mr Trump said.

“You got beat to hell.”

Mr Trump also told reporters at the White House that he expected Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify that it does not restart its nuclear program.

Asked if he would demand during expected talks with Iran that the IAEA or some other organisation be authorised to conduct inspections, Mr Trump said Iran would have to cooperate with the group “or somebody that we respect, including ourselves”.

July 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Uranium | Leave a comment

Iran’s uranium enrichment: myths, realities, and what Canada should understand

Canadians deserve an informed debate about the potential proliferation dangers of these new reactor designs, especially as the intention is to export them around the world.

BY ERIKA SIMPSON, GORDON EDWARDS | June 29, 2025, https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2025/06/29/irans-uranium-enrichment-myths-realities-and-what-canada-should-understand/465192/

Confusion and misinformation continue to shape public discussion about uranium enrichment in Iran. As tensions rise in the Middle East and the fear of nuclear weapons proliferation returns to the headlines, it is important for Canadians to understand the basic scientific facts, the real risks, and the broader international implications.

Uranium enrichment sounds mysterious, but is a well-understood process. Natural uranium contains only 0.7 per cent uranium-235, the rare variety of uranium that can undergo the kind of nuclear chain reaction needed for nuclear power or nuclear bombs. The other 99.3 per cent is uranium-238, a heavier variety of uranium that cannot sustain such a chain reaction. Enrichment is simply the process of raising the percentage of uranium-235.

It is often reported that 90 per cent uranium enrichment is “needed” to have a nuclear weapon. This is not true. The Hiroshima bomb had only 80 per cent enrichment. Iran has a good deal of 60 per cent enriched uranium, and one can make a powerful bomb from 60 per cent enriched uranium. It would be larger in size than a bomb with 90 per cent enrichment, and so more challenging to deliver, but not much more so. The recent bombings are unlikely to have destroyed the hundreds of kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium already in Iran.

The mechanism needed for making an atomic bomb from uranium is much simpler than that needed for a plutonium bomb. It’s called a “gun-type” atomic bomb rather than an “implosion-type” atomic bomb.

The gun-type bomb just fires one chunk of uranium into another chunk (the target) so that the two chunks add up to more than a “critical mass.” It is so simple it cannot possibly fail. The United States never tried out this type of bomb before using it; it was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, with no prior testing. Such a bomb needs a precision-timed “neutron source,” but that is old technology, well known for a long time.

The implosion-type bomb is needed when plutonium is the nuclear explosive. Implosion is much more demanding. It requires a perfectly spherical mass of plutonium metal surrounded by concentric plastic explosives to drive the sphere inward toward the centre—an “ implosion.” It is so tricky it’s pretty well got to be tested first. The U.S. detonated one such plutonium bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico, three weeks before dropping another one on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Nuclear authorities maintain that a powerful nuclear explosive device (gun-type) could be made with any uranium enriched to 20 per cent or more. At the 20-per-cent level such a device would be a lot bulkier; it could not easily be carried by rocket or aeroplane, but could be delivered in the hull of a ship, in a truck or cargo container, or even in the trunk of a car, and detonated by remote control.

For this reason, highly enriched uranium—which is uranium with 20 per cent enriched or more—is increasingly being prohibited from most civilian use.

Up to now, all operating power reactors fuelled with uranium use an enrichment level of no more than five per cent. Fuel at that level of enrichment is not weapons-usable material. But some new reactors proposed in Canada and elsewhere demand fuel that is a lot more enriched. The ARC sodium-cooled reactor planned for New Brunswick uses uranium fuel enriched to more than 13 per cent, while the eVinci reactor being studied in Saskatchewan is designed to use 19.9 per cent enriched uranium.

Independent experts have pointed out that uranium enriched to such high levels—between 12 per cent and 20 per cent—could also be used (like highly enriched uranium) to make an enormously destructive nuclear explosive device. This danger is not officially acknowledged by regulators, and is generally not recognized by politicians and other decision-makers in Canada. The nuclear fuel needed for some of the “fast” or “advanced” SMNRs being proposed in this country is weapons-usable material even though it is below the 20 per per cent enrichment level, and is, therefore, not classified as highly enriched uranium.

Canadians deserve an informed debate about the potential proliferation dangers of these new reactor designs, especially as the intention is to export them around the world.

Gordon Edwards is a nuclear safety consultant and president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. Erika Simpson is an associate professor of international politics at the University of Western Ontario.

July 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uranium | Leave a comment

How effective was the US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites? A visual guide

At odds with Trump’s claim of “complete obliteration”, two Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times described serious damage at Fordow but said the site had not been completely destroyed.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, added: “As for the assessment of the degree of damage underground, on this we cannot pronounce ourselves. It could be important; it could be significant, but no one … neither us nor anybody else could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged.”

Peter Beaumont, Guardian23 June 25 [EXCELLENT PICTURES ON ORIGINAL]

Trump claims the assault ‘totally obliterated’ the key facilities, but what do we know about its impact?

Donald Trump was quick to claim that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “completely and totally obliterated” them. Still, it remains unclear how much physical damage has been done or what the longer-term impact might be on Iran’s nuclear programme.

What was the target?

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but insisted its nuclear programme would not be stopped. Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the three locations after the strikes.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported no deaths from the US strikes, appearing to confirm Iranian claims they had been largely evacuated in advance. The health ministry said those who were injured showed no evidence of nuclear contamination. In the immediate aftermath, US military officials said the three sites had suffered “severe damage” after an operation that had been planned for weeks, suggesting it was coordinated with Israel.

The Pentagon said a battle damage assessment was still being conducted.

What do we know about the strike on Fordow?

Long regarded as the most difficult military target among Iran’s nuclear sites, the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow – the primary target of the operation – are buried beneath the Zagros mountains. Reports have suggested that the site was constructed beneath 45-90 metres of bedrock, largely limestone and dolomite.

Some experts have suggested the layering of the sedimentary rocks, including faults, would also make it more difficult to strike the centrifuge array, providing a kind of geological cushioning against a blast wave.

The attack – codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer – was carried out by seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers flying from the US, after a deception flight by other B-2s into the Pacific. Tomahawk missiles were fired from US ships in waters south of Iran.

The site was hit by a dozen 13,600kg massive ordnance penetrators – known as bunker busters – at approximately 2.10am Iranian time. It was the weapon’s first operational use. The number used suggests a lack of confidence that a smaller strike could penetrate through to the target.

The result to a large extent depends on the kind of concrete inside the facility. Estimates of the bunker busters’ penetration are based largely on reinforced concrete resistant to 5,000psi. Iran is believed to have used more resistant concrete.

While video from the site showed evidence of a fire in the immediate aftermath, satellite images published on Sunday were suggestive but far from conclusive.

The main support building at the site appeared to be undamaged, but the topography of a prominent area of ridge line appeared to have altered and been flattened out, with some evidence of rock scarring close to two clusters of bomb craters around the ridge.

Analysts had suggested that a strike could hit the main entrance tunnel to the site, but the main effort appears to have been in a different location.

At odds with Trump’s claim of “complete obliteration”, two Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times described serious damage at Fordow but said the site had not been completely destroyed.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, added: “As for the assessment of the degree of damage underground, on this we cannot pronounce ourselves. It could be important; it could be significant, but no one … neither us nor anybody else could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged.”

What was the impact at Isfahan?………………………………………

………. facilities targeted at Isfahan either contained no nuclear material or small quantities of natural or low-enriched uranium.

What was hit at Natanz?………

……….It appears that Natanz’s underground enrichment hall was targeted. Enhancement of satellite images from the site on Sunday showed fresh damage to overground buildings and new cratering in the centre of the site…….

Was Iran’s nuclear programme obliterated?

…………………………..“The enriched uranium reserves had been transferred from the nuclear centres and there are no materials left there that, if targeted, would cause radiation and be harmful to our compatriots,”

Three days before the US attacks, 16 cargo trucks were seen near the Fordow entrance tunnel.

The head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, claimed this month that Iran had another enrichment site “in a secure and invulnerable location” that could house centrifuges.

Analysts have long argued that while it is possible to disrupt the physical function of a nuclear facility and limit the scope of a programme through, for example, the killing of scientists, the breadth of technical knowledge acquired during the decades-long programme is impossible to destroy.

Ultimately, the question is whether the US-Israeli attacks are seen as sufficient for Iran to capitulate, or whether they instead encourage the regime to accelerate its efforts to produce a viable nuclear weapon. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/22/how-effective-was-the-us-attack-on-irans-nuclear-sites-a-visual-guide

June 24, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Uranium | Leave a comment

Clearing up the confusion about Iran and uranium enrichment.

Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, 20 June 25, www.ccnr.org/GE_Iran_and_Uranium_Enrichment_2025.pdf

there are NO treaties or binding agreements that make uranium enrichment illegal, to any degree of enrichment whatsoever. So Iran has not violated any obligations laid down by the Non-Proliferation Treaty or any other international instrument

In fact Iran does not have nuclear weapons, whereas Israel does. Iran has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Israel has not. Iran has allowed many inspections of its nuclear facilities by IAEA inspectors whereas Israel has never done so.

There is a lot of confusion about uranium enrchment in Iran.

In natural uranium, only 7 atoms out of 1000 are chain-reacting uranium-235. The other 993 atoms are, for the most part, uranium-238 atoms – not a chain-recating material.

Uranium enrichment refers to any technology that increases the percentage of the chain-reacting U-235 beyond the 0.7% level (i.e.natural uranium). But there is a good deal of misinformation and/or misunderstanding about enriched uranium in the media recently.

(1) Nuclear Explosions

It is often reported that 90% uranium enrichment is “needed” to have a nuclear weapon. This is not true. The Hiroshima bombs had only 80% enrichment. Iran has a good deal of 60% enriched uranium, and you can make a bomb from 60% enriched uranium — it would be bulkier than a bomb with 90% enrichment and therefore harder to deliver, but not so very much harder.

Also, the mechanism needed for making a uranium bomb is very much easier than what is needed for a plutonium bomb. It can be done with a lot less effort and taking very little time. It’s called a “gun-type” atomic bomb rather than an “implosion-type” atomic bomb.

The gun-type bomb just fires one chunk of uranium into another chunk (the target) so that the two chunks add up to more than a “critical mass”. It is so simple it cannot possibly fail – as a result they never had to test this type of bomb before using it. They dropped it on the city of Hiroshima with no testing. There is a need for a precision timed “neutron source” but that is very old technology that has been well known for ages.

The implosion-type bomb is much more sophisticated, requiring a perfectly spherical shaped mass of plutonium metal surrounded by concentric plastic explosives to drive the sphere inward toward the centre – an “ implosion”. That is so tricky it’s pretty well got to be tested before using. The USA tested it at Alamagordo before dropping it on the city of Nagasaki.

Nuclear non-proliferation authorities maintain that a powerful nuclear explosive device (gun-type) could be made with any uranium enriched to 20% or more. Such an explosive device would not have to be delivered by rocket or aeroplane, but could be delivered in the hull of a ship, or in a truck, or even in the trunk of a car, and detonated by remote control.

Independent experts now say the same is true of most HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium) enriched to more than 12% U-235. Although this reality is not officially acknowledged by regulators, it means that the fuel for some of the “fast” or “advanced” SMNRs being proposed — like the ARC [NB] or eVinci [Sask] or Natrium [Wyoming] reactors — is already weapons usable material, even though it is below the 20% enrichment level.

2) Health and Environmental Dangers

Uranium is a radioactive heavy metal. All heavy metals are poisonous. Toxicologists regard the chemical toxicity of natural (unenriched) uranium to be equal to or greater than the radiotoxicity. Ingestion of uranium is particularly hazardous to the kidney – renotoxicity (chemical). Inhalation will expose the lungs to alpha radiation, causing fibrosis of the lungs and possibly cancer.

The more enriched the uranium, the more elevated is the radiotoxicity while the chemical toxicity remains basically unchanged. However, in the form of a metallic or an oxide dust or aerosol, the danger is long-term rather than short term. Death would not occur immediately but over time. Cancers would take up to 20 years or more to develop.

However, enrichment plants use uranium in a very toxic chemical form called uranium hexafluoride (“hex”) UF6. This is one of the only compounds of uranium that exists in a gaserous form at pretty low temperatures. You need to have a gas in order to separate the heavier uranium atoms from the lighter ones. Iran uses thousands of “ultracentrifuges” to do this. Spinning very fast, the heavier uranium atoms are thrown outwards while the iighter atoms stay closer to the centre, providing a very slight degree of enrichment. By repeating this procedure tens of thousands of times, you can achieve any degree of enrichment you want, but it is a slow process and cannot be hurried.

Now uranium hexafluoride is a very nasty substance. It reacts with moist air to form a corrosive acidic compound that is very harmful to living things exposed to it. So people close to the faciltiies, if those facilities were bombed, could be greatly harmed right away from the “hex”. Here are some of the details about uranium hexafluoride from US government sources:

OSHA Hazards

Highly toxic by inhalation, Highly toxic by ingestion. Corrosive.

Target Organs

Kidney, Liver, Lungs, Brain, Skin, Eyes.

GHS Classification

Acute toxicity, Oral (Category 1)
Acute toxicity, Inhalation (Category 1)
Specific target organ toxicity –

repeated exposure (Category 2) Skin Corrosion (Category 1A)
Serious eye damage (Category 1)
Acute aquatic toxicity (Category 2)

(3) Geopolitics

In the meantime it is important to realize that there are NO treaties or binding agreements that make uranium enrichment illegal, to any degree of enrichment whatsoever. So Iran has not violated any obligations laid down by the Non-Proliferation Treaty or any other international instrument. In fact Iran does not have nuclear weapons, whereas Israel does. Iran has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Israel has not. Iran has allowed many inspections of its nuclear facilities by IAEA inspectors whereas Israel has never done so.

Nevertheless, it is true that anyone (like Iran) with a stash of highly enriched uranium can choose to make bombs rather quickly at any time. In that sense the threat is very real, but there is no indication that Iran has crossed that line. Under the Obama administration, Iran agreed to the most restrictive conditions that any country in the world has ever agreed to – including not enriching uranium beyond 5%, which is definitely not usable for nuclear weapons. No other country has ever agreed to or accepted such a restriction.

In the first Trump administration, it was Benjamin Netanyahu that bullied Trump into breaking that Obama-era agreement unilaterally — and Netanyahu is now (by attacking Iran) making it as difficult as possible for anyone to negotiate a new agreement regarding the nuclear program in Iran. It seems clear that Netanyahu does not want Iran to enter into any such agreement. Israel’s actions seem designed to try to prevent such an agreement.

(4) A World Without Nuclear Weapons

The one good thing about this episode may be that it impresses on people’s minds the dangers of allowing states to produce the explosive materials needed to make atomic bombs – namely, highly enriched uranium or plutonium. If the world is to ever achieve a nuclear weapons-free world, one of the preconditions would have to be outright prohibition or esclusive international control over all uranium enrichment plants and/or plutonium extraction facilities (i.e. reprocessing plants). Further, the use of weapons-usable uranium or plutonium-based fuels should – for similar reasons – be prohibited. This will rule out most “advanced” reactors.

June 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uranium | 8 Comments

Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile.

Both Vice President JD Vance and Rafael Grossi, the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, acknowledged questions about the
whereabouts of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade nuclear material.

New York Times 22nd June 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/iran-uranium-stockpile-whereabouts.html

June 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran.

Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium
from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to
help narrow U.S.-Iranian differences over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear
programme. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power, but its
swiftly-advancing uranium enrichment programme has raised fears in the
wider West and across the Gulf that it wants to develop a nuclear weapon.

Reuters 11th June 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-is-ready-remove-excess-nuclear-materials-iran-2025-06-11/

June 14, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Russia, Uranium | Leave a comment

Revealed: three tonnes of uranium legally dumped in protected English estuary in nine years

Expert raises concerns over quantities allowed to be discharged from nuclear fuel factory near Preston

Pippa Neill, Fri 23 May 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/22/revealed-uranium-from-uk-nuclear-fuel-factory-dumped-into-protected-ribble-estuary?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other&fbclid=IwY2xjawK1jcVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFUZDhsb3M1VVowc2dTaDRHAR6Vqo96u_ivfBV3vr67Soko2rokhP5vh14xCyKYjSkJPujsuqqLdfJSFKjYCw_aem_WlsFzhgy4_Rme1y0tyreVg

The Environment Agency has allowed a firm to dump three tonnes of uranium into one of England’s most protected sites over the past nine years, it can be revealed, with experts sounding alarm over the potential environmental impact of these discharges.

Documents obtained by the Guardian and the Ends Report through freedom of information requests show that a nuclear fuel factory near Preston discharged large quantities of uranium – legally, under its environmental permit conditions – into the River Ribble between 2015 and 2024. The discharges peaked in 2015 when 703kg of uranium was discharged, according to the documents.

Raw uranium rock mined from all over the world is brought to the Springfields Fuels factory in Lea Town, a small village roughly five miles from Preston, where the rock is treated and purified to create uranium fuel rods.

According to the factory’s website, it has supplied several million fuel elements to reactors in 11 different countries.

The discharge point for the uranium releases is located within the Ribble estuary marine conservation zone – and about 800m upstream of the Ribble estuary, which is one of the most protected sites in the country, classified as a site of special scientific interest, a special protection area (SPA) and a Ramsar site (a wetland designated as being of international importance).

The government’s latest Radioactivity in Food and the Environment report, published in November 2024, notes that in 2023 the total dose of radiation from Springfields Fuels was approximately 4% of the dose limit that is set to protect members of the public from radiation.

However, Dr Ian Fairlile, an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, who was a scientific secretary to the UK government’s committee examining radiation risks of internal emitters, said that in terms of radioactivity, the discharges from Springfields Fuels were a “very large amount”.

“I’m concerned at this high level. It’s worrying”, he said, referring specifically to the 2015 discharge.

In a 2009 assessment, the Environment Agency concluded that the total dose rate of radioactivity for the Ribble and Alt estuaries SPA was “significantly in excess” of the agreed threshold of 40 microgray/h, below which regulators have agreed there would be no adverse effect to the integrity of a protected site. The report found the calculated total dose rate for the worst affected organism in the estuary was more than 10 times higher than this threshold, with discharges of radionuclides from the Springfields Fuels site to blame.

As a result, a more detailed assessment was undertaken. In this latter report, it was concluded that based on new permitted discharge limits, which had been lowered due to planned operational changes at Springfields Fuels, the dose rates to wildlife were below the agreed threshold and therefore there was no adverse effect on the integrity of the protected site.

Under the site’s current environmental permit, there is no limit on the weight of uranium discharges, which in itself has raised eyebrows. Instead, the uranium discharge is limited in terms of its radioactivity, with an annual limit of 0.04 terabecquerels. Prior to this, the discharge limit in terms of radioactivity was 0.1 terabecquerels.

A terabecquerel is a unit of radioactivity equal to 1tn becquerels. One becquerel represents a rate of radioactive decay equal to one radioactive decay per second.

Despite this tighter limit having been agreed six years ago, experts have raised concerns over the continued authorised discharges from the site.

Fairlile specifically questioned the Environment Agency’s modelling of how this discharge level could be classified as safe. “This is a very high level. The Environment Agency’s risk modelling might be unreliable. Which would make its discharge limits unsafe”, he said.

The Environment Agency said its processes for assessing impacts to habitats were “robust and follow international best practice, including the use of a tiered assessment approach”.

Dr Patrick Byrne, a reader in hydrology and environmental pollution at Liverpool John Moores University, said the 703kg of uranium discharged in 2015 was an “exceptionally high volume”

Dr Doug Parr, a policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Discharges of heavy metals into the environment are never good, especially when those metals are radioactive.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson declined to comment directly, but the regulator said it set “strict environmental permit conditions for all nuclear operators in England, including Springfields Fuels Limited”.

It said these permits were based on “detailed technical assessments and are designed to ensure that any discharges of radioactive substances, including uranium, do not pose an unacceptable risk to people or the environment”.

While the government’s Radioactivity in Food and the Environment report found sources of radiation from Springfield Fuels were approximately 4% of the dose limit to members of the public, it also concluded that radionuclides – specifically isotopes of uranium – were detected downstream in sediment and biota in the Ribble estuary due to discharges from Springfields.

This is not the first time uranium levels in the estuary silt have been noted. Research conducted by the British Geological Survey (BGS) in 2002 detected “anomalously high” concentrations of uranium in a silt sample downstream of the Springfields facility.

The highest level recorded in the BGS report was 60μg/g of uranium in the silt – compared with a background level of 3-4μg/g. The researchers described this as a “significant anomaly”.

The UK is looking to expand its nuclear fuel production capabilities, including at Springfields Fuels. This is in order to increase energy security and reduce reliance on Russian fuel, and to deliver on a target of 24GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050.

A spokesperson from Westinghouse Electric Company UK, the operator of the factory), said: “Springfields is committed to strong environmental stewardship in our Lancashire community. The plant is monitored and regulated by the Environment Agency and operates well within those regulations. For nearly the past 80 years, Springfields has provided high-quality jobs to the local community and the fuel we provide to the UK’s nuclear power plants has avoided billions of tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuels.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “The Environment Agency strictly regulates Springfields Fuels through robust environmental permits that control radioactive discharges, ensuring they pose no unacceptable risk to people or the environment. These permits are based on international best practice and are routinely reviewed, including detailed habitat assessments. Discharge limits have been progressively reduced over time, and monitoring by both the operator and the Environment Agency confirms no cause for concern.

June 12, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Uranium | Leave a comment