IPFM International Panel on Fissile Materials

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The Legacy of Reprocessing in the United Kingdom

posted by Alexander Glaser on Jul 8th, 2008 [15:25h]
under: plutonium, reprocessing, mox, united kingdom
last edited on Jul 8th, 2008 [16:08h]

After five decades, reprocessing at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield site in West Cumbria is winding down and, according to a new report for the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), it has left a costly legacy.

When current reprocessing contracts are fulfilled, Sellafield operations will have resulted in an accumulated UK stock of about 100 tonnes of separated plutonium – enough to make more than 10,000 nuclear weapons – plus almost 2 million cubic meters of radioactive waste. The plutonium is considered to be an asset of "zero value." The estimated direct cost of cleanup at the Sellafield site has risen to 73 billion British pounds ($146 billion). The final reckoning will be known only a half century hence when the cleanup is to be completed. Since the government-owned operator of the site, British Nuclear Fuels Limited, was found to be technically bankrupt, responsibility for operations there have been taken over by a government-established Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Magnox Fuel Storage Pond (Source: BNFL)

The report, commissioned by IPFM and authored by Martin Forwood, the Director of the UK non-governmental group CORE, concludes that this legacy is a result of UK reprocessing policy being driven by the short-term interests of the industry and by hopes that this industry could earn the UK foreign exchange through sales of reprocessing and MOX-fuel fabrication services to other countries. None of the UK’s foreign reprocessing customers have renewed their contracts, however. Most have concluded that it is much less costly to store their spent fuel at home than to send it abroad to be reprocessed and deal with the separated plutonium and returning highly radioactive waste.

Plans to either irradiate all or part of the legacy of separated plutonium in reactor fuel or dispose of it with radioactive waste currently await a decision largely dependent on whether the UK will build a new generation of nuclear power plants. A study done for the UK government found, however, that the throughput of the billion-dollar plant that was built at Sellafield for processing separated plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) will rise to “only a few tonnes of plutonium a year at best” because of design flaws.

The full report is available here -- For a hard copy, contact ipfm@fissilematerials.org

New Report: Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France

posted by Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac on May 21st, 2008 [16:53h]
under: plutonium, reprocessing, mox, france
last edited on May 21st, 2008 [17:02h]

IPFM has just released a new research report, "Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France," by Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac. The full report is available here -- For a hard copy, send mailing address to ipfm@fissilematerials.org

FROM THE REPORT:

France started to reprocess spent nuclear fuel in 1958, originally to produce plutonium for weapons and later also to fuel a projected but never realized large-scale deployment of fast breeder reactors. This report looks at the reprocessing experience at France’s Marcoule and La Hague sites and assesses the record in terms of waste management, radioactive discharges, radiological and health impacts, and cost, and addresses briefly issues of safety and security.

France now has large stocks of both spent fuel (over 12,000 tons) and of separated plutonium (over 50 tons). Analysis suggests there is no clear advantage for the reprocessing option as a form of waste management, either in terms of radioactive waste volumes or repository area.

La Hague is currently the largest man-made source of radioactivity releases. The radiological impact corresponds to collective doses following a significant nuclear accident, comparable to the 1957 waste explosion in Kyshtym in Russia or the Windscale (UK) fire. Continuing discharges at this level for the expected remaining years of its operation could cause 3000 additional cancer deaths or more over the long term.

Reprocessing in France also raises safety and security concerns. For instance, an average of about two truck shipments per week of separated plutonium from La Hague travel about 1,000 km to enable production of plutonium-bearing power-reactor fuel (MOX).

The economic costs of reprocessing are high. In 2000, a report for the French Prime Minister found that choosing reprocessing instead of direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel would result in a 5.5 percent increase in average electricity generation cost or an 85 percent increase of total spent fuel and waste management costs. Industry data suggests the costs of a future reprocessing plant would need to be at most half that for La Hague in order for reprocessing to cost no more than direct disposal of spent fuel.

Until recently, foreign reprocessing contracts have offset some of La Hague’s high costs. Until around 2004, close to half of the spent-fuel processed was foreign-owned. Almost all of the foreign spent fuel under contract has been reprocessed, and only minor new contracts have been signed. The economic burden of reprocessing is increasingly weighing on the French electricity sector and may prove unsustainable if left to market forces. Earlier this year, after several years of negotiations, the state electricity utility EDF and the state nuclear fuel company AREVA NC failed to reach a long-term agreement over the utility's plutonium separation and use.

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