United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority(UKAEA) was established in 1954 by the UK Government to oversee the country's nuclear research programme and development of the industry. In 1956 Calder Hall was commissioned by the UKAEA turning UK into "the first country in the world to adopt nuclear power on an industrial and commercial scale". In 1957 after a fire at Windscale, a nuclear complex near Calder Hall, which reportedly caused "32 deaths and 260 cases of cancer" from the leaked radiation, UKAEA changed its name to Sellafield. In 1971 BNFL, the authority's production arm, split off from the UKAEA. (Independent on Sunday, November 27, 2005)

UKAEA currently oversees five of the UK's 20 nuclear sites. Since April 2005, it has worked under contract to the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on a 8 billion project to decommission old nuclear plants.

In 2005, a cementation plant at Dounreay, a UKAEA facility, was closed after the spillage of hazardous, dissolved spent fuel and an investigation started. According to the times, "the discovery of nuclear particles on neighbouring beaches has led to calls for a full public inquiry into the scale of pollution at the site, while the UKAEA has been accused of a cover-up". The prototype fast reactor at Dounreay was already shut down in 1994. (The Times, October 18, 2005) This was the second scare in less than a year to hit the plant. According to the Daily Mail, a Dounreay spokesman "confirmed that eight workers were being tested for suspected plutonium intake". The lab was already shut down the previous year "following a similar alarm involving 15 workers...In August, UKAEA started refresher courses following a number of radiation scares, during which contamination was detected on five workers in a week." (Daily Mail, October 17, 2005)

UKAEA has commissioned the services of the following PR companies:

• Grayling Political Strategy
• APCO Worldwide
• Fells Associates

Key Personnel

Chief Executive	Dipesh Shah
Chairman	Barbara Thomas Judge
Director, Major Projects & Engineering	Colin Bayliss
Director, Safety & Assurance	John Crofts
Chief Financial Officer	Andrew Jackson

John Collier was a former Chairman of UKAEA.

Related Articles

• Tim Webb, "Analysis: Nuclear haze",Independent on Sunday, November 27, 2005
• Andrew Davidson, "UK nuclear power boss radiates boundless energy", The Sunday Times, June 26, 2005