Nuclear material is 'lost' by Sellafield

Enough plutonium to make seven nuclear bombs has gone missing from Britain's major nuclear power site, it is reported today.

Sellafield has "lost" 30kg of the highly hazardous material, the annual audit of Britain's civil nuclear installations is expected to reveal. The discrepancy, which compares with a 19kg "loss" at the plant in 2003, is expected to embarrass the British Nuclear Group (BNG) which manages the facility.

About 50kg has been lost at the Cumbrian plant over 10 years. Plutonium is a man-made radioactive metal that can be used as a nuclear fuel and a nuclear weapon. Sellafield processes thousands of tons of nuclear material every year.

British Nuclear Fuels (BNF), the parent company of BNG, has dismissed the figures as a "paper loss" and an "accounting issue". But experts describe the revelations as worrying.

John Large, an independent nuclear consultant, said: "They make this claim of an auditing problem, but I would expect them to be overzealous in the current climate of fears about terrorism." Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear weapons specialist, told The Times: "There will always be some material unaccounted for but this is a dramatic development.

"This is a reason for not reprocessing spent nuclear fuel because you can't tell what the material unaccounted for is."

The Department of Trade and Industry said the audit "does not represent any material going missing". It added: "This is an accounting process. It's not unusual for the accounting process to indicate material unaccounted for."

BNF is expected to make a statement about the situation today.