The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Comment sought on plutonium options study

14 August 2008

We are now seeking comments on the potential options for the future management of the UK civil nuclear plutonium stockpile.

Submit comments online on Plutonium Options August 2008
Closing date: 8 October 2008

We’ve published a draft options paper which we will use as the basis of the definition of the credible options that we will submit to Government by the end of 2008 and we’d like stakeholder comments before October 8.

As a result of historic reprocessing operations since the 1950s, the UK has built up a significant stockpile of around 100 tonnes of separated civil plutonium. The most appropriate future management strategy of this stock is an important issue to be determined by Government with assistance from NDA.

Current UK policy is long-term storage, however this doesn’t provide a final method of dealing with the material nor allow the development of final site closure plans for Sellafield and Dounreay, where it is currently safely and securely stored.

Our head of fuel cycle technology Paul Gilchrist said:

“There is no quick solution to managing the stockpile.

“We know that at a high level, there are three options: store indefinitely, immobilise and dispose, and reuse and dispose.

“However, the store option is not a solution to plutonium management and would need to change at some point in the future to either dispose or reuse.”

Mr Gilchrist said that there were a number of key issues being considered during the development of the paper, including the cost and technical challenges of the options.

He added that different solutions would have different environmental and socio-economic impacts and carbon footprints and that potentially the plutonium stockpile has a very large energy value to the UK, which may prove to be a national asset.

The timetable for completing the options paper is as follows:

August – October 2008, comment period

October – November 2008, final analysis, consideration of stakeholder comment

December 2008, paper to NDA board

December 2008, paper presented to BERR

We are carrying out a final analysis of a two-year uranium and plutonium study covering environmental, socio-economic and financial impacts to feed into the advice to Government and have commissioned some additional work to underpin costs and levels of uncertainty. A workshop with stakeholders will also be held in October before advice is provided to Government.