BNFL goes into meltdown

Damning safety audits of British Nuclear Fuels' Sellafield works have left the future of nuclear fuel reprocessing - and the Government's plans to partly privatise the company - hanging in the balance. The scandal over falsification of data has stretched relations with Japan, BNFL's main overseas customer, to breaking point and drastically undermined the case for a new mixed oxide (MOX) fuel plant. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate's attack on "poor safety culture" across the Sellafield site echoes its recent criticisms of safety standards elsewhere in the nuclear industry.