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Fri - Jun 18th, 2010
NEW IPFM REPORT: Reducing and Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to Nuclear Disarmament
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Wed - Feb 17th, 2010
NEW IPFM RESEARCH REPORT: Unsuccessful "Fast Breeder" is no solution for long-term reactor waste disposal issues.
See press release (PDF, 131 KB)
Thu - Oct 29th, 2009
JUST RELEASED: Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament
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Wed - Sep 9th, 2009
September 2009 draft of the IPFM Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty (including an article-by-article discussion)
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Thu - May 28th, 2009
IPFM Research Report #7: Consolidating Fissile Materials in Russia's Nuclear Complex, by Pavel Podvig
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Thu - Feb 19th, 2009
IPFM Research Report #6: The Safeguards at Reprocessing Plants under a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, by Shirley Johnson
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Fri - Feb 13th, 2009
IPFM Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty
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Fri - Feb 13th, 2009
IPFM Releases Draft International Treaty to Ban Production of Fissile Materials For Use in Nuclear Weapons: Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty
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Sat - Oct 11th, 2008
Global Fissile Material Report 2008, Scope and Verification of a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty
download (PDF, 7,6 MB)
Wed - Oct 1st, 2008
Available for download: the IPFM briefing on Global Fissile Material Report 2008:
Scope and Verification of a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, 52nd IAEA General Conference, Vienna, Austria
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Tue - Jul 8th, 2008
IPFM Research Report #5: The Legacy of Reprocessing in the United Kingdom, by Martin Forwood
download (PDF, 940 KB)
Thu - May 8th, 2008
IPFM Research Report #4: Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France, by Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac
download (PDF, 2,7 MB)
Mon - May 5th, 2008
Available for download: the IPFM briefing on A Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty and Its Verification, United Nations Office at Geneva, Palais des Nations, 2008 NPT Preparatory Committee Meeting
read more
NEW IPFM REPORT: Reducing and Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to Nuclear Disarmament
download (PDF, 2 MB)
Wed - Feb 17th, 2010
NEW IPFM RESEARCH REPORT: Unsuccessful "Fast Breeder" is no solution for long-term reactor waste disposal issues.
See press release (PDF, 131 KB)
Thu - Oct 29th, 2009
JUST RELEASED: Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament
download (PDF, 9,2 MB)
Wed - Sep 9th, 2009
September 2009 draft of the IPFM Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty (including an article-by-article discussion)
download full text (PDF, 182 KB)
Thu - May 28th, 2009
IPFM Research Report #7: Consolidating Fissile Materials in Russia's Nuclear Complex, by Pavel Podvig
download (PDF, 709 KB)
Thu - Feb 19th, 2009
IPFM Research Report #6: The Safeguards at Reprocessing Plants under a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, by Shirley Johnson
download (PDF, 542 KB)
Fri - Feb 13th, 2009
IPFM Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty
download full text (PDF, 256 KB)
Fri - Feb 13th, 2009
IPFM Releases Draft International Treaty to Ban Production of Fissile Materials For Use in Nuclear Weapons: Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty
read more
Sat - Oct 11th, 2008
Global Fissile Material Report 2008, Scope and Verification of a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty
download (PDF, 7,6 MB)
Wed - Oct 1st, 2008
Available for download: the IPFM briefing on Global Fissile Material Report 2008:
Scope and Verification of a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, 52nd IAEA General Conference, Vienna, Austria
read more
Tue - Jul 8th, 2008
IPFM Research Report #5: The Legacy of Reprocessing in the United Kingdom, by Martin Forwood
download (PDF, 940 KB)
Thu - May 8th, 2008
IPFM Research Report #4: Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France, by Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac
download (PDF, 2,7 MB)
Mon - May 5th, 2008
Available for download: the IPFM briefing on A Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty and Its Verification, United Nations Office at Geneva, Palais des Nations, 2008 NPT Preparatory Committee Meeting
read more
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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]
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
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
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