The ONR has recently agreed to a major revision of the Magnox Limit’s emergency plans. In a Project Assessment Report available on the internet they approve the removal of the Central Emergency Support Centre (CESC) from the Magnox emergency plans.
The CESC is a large control room in EDF’s headquarters in Barnwood. It provides for the off-site support for a nuclear power station in an emergency situation. Command, technical, health physics and support teams are available at short notice during working hours and within an hour or so out of hours. The technical team helps to understand the situation on the site and provide advice on how to rectify the situation and on the release prognosis. The health physics team takes over the off-site survey and combines the knowledge gained about off-site doses with the predictions of the changing situation from the technical team to provide estimates of the public avertable dose to support the countermeasure decision process in the Strategic Coordination Centre.
With no operating reactors and most of the fleet defueled the changes of Magnox using this facility is greatly reduced. They have developed a new simplified system that is more in line with the evolving Company risk profile and tested it to the satisfaction of the ONR.
EDF-Energy, with their fleet of operating reactors will continue to use the CESC.
Removal of the CESC from the Magnox plans is an important step and was a complex process. Magnox and the ONR should be congratulated on the success of this project.