[ RadSafe ] Britain downplays 66 pounds of plutonium listed as missing

[Charly Frey]

A British nuclear reprocessing plant cannot account for nearly 66 pounds of
plutonium, but authorities believe it's an accounting issue rather than a
loss of potential bomb-making material, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority
said today.

The amount of material listed as missing at the Sellafield plant in
northwestern England was "within international standards of expected
measurement accuracies for closing a nuclear material balance at the type of
facility concerned," the authority said.

"There is no evidence to suggest that any of the apparent losses reported
were real losses of nuclear material," the authority added.

In 2003, the processing plant reported it could not account for 42 pounds of
plutonium. The plant said that was consistent with figures published since
the 1970s.

Plutonium accounts for 1 percent of the nuclear material handled at
Sellafield, the rest if uranium.