UK Plutonium plant to close-leave world's largest stockpile

UK Plutonium plant to close-leave world's largest stockpile

Postby Oscar » Fri May 14, 2021 9:07 am

UK’s Magnox nuclear reprocessing plant to close, leaving world’s largest stockpile of separated civil plutonium

[ https://nuclear-news.net/2021/05/13/uks ... plutonium/ ]

Plutonium Policy, No2 NuclearPower, No 132 May 13, 2021, Update Introduction ..

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) now expects the Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield to close this year (2021) – one year later than previously planned. The newer Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) was shut in November 2018. Reprocessing, which has always been unnecessary, is the chemical separation of plutonium and unused uranium from spent nuclear waste fuel.

When reprocessing ends there will be around 140 tonnes of separated civil plutonium stored at Sellafield – the world’s largest stockpile of separated civil plutonium. (1) In 2008 the NDA launched a consultation on options (2) for dealing with this embarrassing stockpile – it is highly toxic, poses a permanent risk of proliferation, and will cost taxpayers around £73 million a year to store for the next century. (3) Today, after almost a decade and a half of dithering, the UK Government has failed to make any decisions, but still appears to favour the re-use option, which would probably involve transporting weapons useable plutonium or MoX fuel to reactor sites, such as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell B (and C if it is ever built) with an armed escort. . . . . .

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