Macfarlane visits 'flawed' reactor - Breaking News - National - Breaking News

If he was looking for something to support the push for a nuclear industry in Australia, then the visit to an ageing reactor in Scotland was not quite the ticket for industry minister Ian Macfarlane.
As the minister was visiting the Torness reactor, south of Edinburgh, reports broke in the British media on Wednesday that the reactor has cracks in the graphite bricks in its core, and no-one knows why.
Experts are calling for Torness to be shut down, along with several other ageing British reactors with similar problems.
It's an embarrassment for the federal government, particularly as debate raged on Wednesday over an issues paper prepared by the prime ministerial taskforce on nuclear energy.
The issues paper lists more than 100 matters for inquiry, 80 of them economic.
The task force is to report by the end of the year.
A spokeswoman for Mr Macfarlane, who is an enthusiastic supporter of nuclear power generation for Australia, confirmed on Wednesday the minister was visiting the Torness reactor.
The Guardian newspaper reported in London that Torness, and several other ageing British reactors, had cracks in their reactor cores. It quoted experts calling for them to be closed down.
The source is a report obtained under freedom of information.
The report said the reactors, including Torness, posed increased risks and that British Energy, which owns them, did not know the extent of damage to the cores.
"According to the papers, the company does not know the extent of the damage to the reactor cores, cannot monitor their deterioration and does not fully understand why cracking has occurred," the report said.
"Cracks in the graphite brick cores of ageing reactors have been observed for some time but until now there has been little public knowledge of the extent of the problem.
"British Energy warned in 2004 that its Hinkley Point B, Hunterston B, Heysham 2 and Torness plants might not be able to be extend their 30-year lives because of cracked bricks, but it gave few details of the extent of the problem."
A spokesman for the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory, Peter Robertson, said the British report shows how secretive the nuclear industry is.
"The first question we have to know is, did Macfarlane know about these cracks or was he told about the cracks by the people he met with at Torness," Mr Robertson said.
"If he didn't know about them and wasn't told about them, then this once again demonstrates what a very secretive and dangerous industry the nuclear industry is."
The federal government was already under fire over the issues paper prepared by the prime minister's task force.
Environment groups and the federal opposition criticised the scope of the inquiry, which is headed by former Telstra CEO, Dr Ziggy Switkowski.
The opposition's environment spokesman, Anthony Albanese, said Mr Macfarlane's visit "just adds to the concern that Australians feel about the inquiry, which overnight has been determined that economic analysis will (comprise) 80 of 100 questions that are being considered.
"It's extraordinary that you have a nuclear inquiry ... which will not take into account public consultation," he said.
"(And) they're not considering location."
Dr Switkowski defended his review from claims it is sidelining environmental issues.
He said more economic issues than any others were being canvassed because they were easier to itemise.
"It is a lot easier to itemise a whole lot of financial and kind of numerical categories, which we have done, and we have left the questions of the environment and occupational health and safety as reasonably broad ones, but these are just to guide the debate," Dr Switkowski said.
© 2006 AAP