Compassion fatigue may or may not result from seeing too many photographs of starving refugees but the constant drip of information about the errant nuclear plant at Dounreay breeds, not fatigue, but outrage. The latest revelation informs us that Dounreay has lost 170 kilogrammes of highly-enriched uranium. It is enough to make several substantial nuclear bombs, but nobody at that shambolic excuse for a nuclear establishment can tell us where it is. It may be in the waste shaft which is being disinterred at large cost to the public purse or it may even be hiding behind shielding panels in one of Dounreay's reprocessing plants. The investigation shows that much more material was tipped into the shaft than anybody had thought and, in the context of the missing uranium, that is
hardly a surprise. There may even be a chance that the uranium, which spirited itself off in the sixties, has ended up as part of Britain's nuclear deterrent. That may simply be a conspiracy
theory, but we will never know because the cult of secrecy which has always infested Dounreay and the iron bands of the Official Secrets Act mean that truth is at a premium.
It is abundantly clear that there must be a full examination of Dounreay's reason for existence. It is not enough to argue that it is a large employer in an area of the country where work is scarce. There is evidence that the people of Caithness are now uneasy at its activities and the county would benefit in any case from a regeneration programme to diversify into other industries. That programme should, of course, have been initiated years ago. Neither should Dounreay be allowed to lay as much as a finger on a commercial reprocessing contract, other than what it has at the moment. Ironically, the real skill of the workforce lies in decommissioning its own plant and clearing up the mess it has created. That skill is highly marketable around the world. It should be promoted.
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