Campaigners condemn Dounreay's nuclear fuel rail plan.
ANTI-nuclear campaigners have hit out at plans to haul consignments of spent nuclear fuel by rail from Caithness to Cumbria.
The prospect has emerged as a result of Dounreay’s site licensed company making clear it favours sending breeder fuel from the DFR dome-shaped reactor to the giant reprocessing plant at Sellafield.
If DSRL’s plans get the nod from its government paymasters and industry regulators, monthly train loads of the highly radioactive cargo would travel through Scotland and the north-west of England.
Thurso has been ruled out as a terminal, with the most likely railhead being the freight-handling base at Georgemas.
Friends of the Earth Scotland has condemned the proposal as ill-conceived and risky, calling for the fuel to be put into secure, long-term stores at Dounreay.

Alex Anderson, DSRL’s fuels programme manager, confirmed Sellafield is its current preferred option. But he said the proposal is to go out to public consultation, with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority expected to make a final decision in the autumn.
“This is not a done deal,” stressed Mr Anderson.
The issue centres on the uranium
Eleven tonnes removed when the reactor closed in 1977 has since been kept in a heavily shielded store on the site. A further 33 tonnes remains in the reactor with preparations under way for a multi-million-pound, hi-tech operation to remove those 977 elements.
Mr Anderson listed the three options DSRL has to deal with what constitutes just under half of the site’s total spent fuel stock.
It could build a new long-term store where the fuel would be kept after the site is demolished.
This is the most expensive option and one which would significantly delay the decommissioning of the former fast reactor complex.
An alternative would be to feed the fuel into the existing waste stream and build a new store to accommodate the waste drums.
Mr Anderson said: “This would be the second most expensive option and it would also retain the hazard on the site.”
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The favoured method would be to reconfigure and package the elements to allow them to be dispatched for reprocessing at Sellafield and turned into fuel, which could be used in Magnox reactors.
Mr Anderson said: “It’s the least expensive of the three and it removes the hazard from the site.”
Defending the proposed use of rail, he said: “Rail is the normal means of getting spent fuel to Sellafield. There have been thousands of Magnox movements by rail without any incident whatsoever.”
The elements would be contained within a 60-tonne flask and carried by Direct Rail Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of the NDA. The operation would cost between £1 million and £1.5m.
He said details would only be fleshed out if and when the NDA support the proposal.
The quango is expected to favour it as it made clear in its recent business plan its support for the principle of moving spent fuel from Dounreay to Sellafield.
FoE Scotland chief executive Stan Blackley said: “We believe Scotland should phase out the use of nuclear power as quickly as possible but that we should also take responsibility for the historical wastes resulting from our country’s regrettable nuclear past.
“There are no proven waste disposal routes for nuclear waste, which should therefore be securely stored, with full retrievability, above ground and as close as practical to where it arose, in this case at Dounreay.”
Mr Blackley added: “Sending nuclear waste from Dounreay to Sellafield is unnecessary and risky, with enormous potential for accidents, mistakes and even sabotage. As an option, it should not even be considered.”