GREENPEACE - DOUNREAY UPDATE. 13th March 1998 Dounreay has just gone through a second public consultation exercise (it finished on 23rd Feb). So the Scottish Environment Protection Agency now has to decide whether or not to approve increases of discharges there, while a similar exercis e is being carried out at Sellafield. The Nordic countries in particular, have been concerned about Dounreay for many years (before contamination from Sellafield was discovered on the coast of Norway). The NII have called for major improvements to Dounreay's two reprocessing plants because they fall below modern standards, and has said neither plant can re-open until a programme for improvements is agreed. The highly-enriched uranium D1204 plant (or MTR reprocessing plant) has been shut for two years due to lack of work - this is the one that imports spent fuel from foreign research reactors - and the only prospect of new work seems to be from Australia. These imports of foreign waste are extremely controversial in Scotland. The main D1206 plutonium reprocessing plant (PFR reprocessing line) - which reprocesses the spent fuel from the closed fast reactor - has been closed since 1996 following a leak and now requires major repairs. The extra improvement work now demanded by the NII must further under-mine the economic case for continuing reprocessing work at Dounreay. The cost of fixing the PFR reprocessing line was already expected to be £20m. Dounreay's economic case, before they knew they were getting a £20m bill, was th at reprocessing would save £10-15m compared with dry storage. The waste shaft, and waste silo have both generated a significant amount of bad publicity for Dounreay in recent months. The latest revelations about the shaft indicate that a "criticality incident" is possible in the shaft (ie a nuclear expolosion) an d consultants have told Dounreay that the silo could suffer a hydrogen explosion. Although the shaft is no longer used, waste is still being disposed of in the silo. The economic justification for re-opening the two reprocessing lines, with the public expenditure that that will entail, appears extremely dubious. Greenpeace is still waiting for answers to a series of questions sent to the Dti in January. The Government could encourage the UKAEA to develop Dounreay as a centre of excellence for decommissioning. In the meantime, it would seem sensible to review reprocessing at Dounreay, rather than approving their application for revised discharge author isation, given the current state of affairs at the site.