A shipment of samples of plutonium oxide is en-route from the UK to a laboratory at Orano’s Melox plant in southern France. The samples will be used to determine if the plutonium can be used in the production of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. The samples, from an inventory stored at the UK’s Sellafield site, arrived by ship on 26 November at the port of Cherbourg in northern France. From there, they are being transported by road to the Melox plant. The shipment is taking place under an agreement between the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Orano to provide the NDA with technical expertise on the option of recycling the plutonium stockpiled at Sellafield. Orano noted the samples – comprising a few hundred grams of plutonium oxide – are conditioned in a package specifically designed to ensure the containment and permit safe transport of the material. These packages have been approved by both the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation and France’s Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire. The samples are to be used in the testing line set up at the laboratory on the Melox plant site to conduct analysis and verify the feasibility of converting the UK plutonium oxide into MOX fuel pellets. “This could then be recycled through the plant’s industrial process and used to produce fuel to supply electricity to the European market,” Orano said. About 5% of the content of MOX fuel is plutonium recovered by reprocessing nuclear fuel that has already been used in power-generating reactors.

World Nuclear News 28th Nov 2019 read more »

After 70 years of building and operating nuclear power plants across the world, governments are bequeathing to future generations a radioactive legacy. They remain unable to deal with the huge quantities of highly radioactive spent fuel they produce, says a group of independent experts − and as more reactors are reaching the end of their lives, the situation is worsening fast. That is the conclusion of the first World Nuclear Waste Report (WNWR), produced by a group which says there are ever-growing challenges in waste management and no sustainable long-term solutions. They include two British academics: the economist Professor Gordon MacKerron, of the University of Sussex, and the independent radiation biologist Dr Ian Fairlie. “Despite many plans and declared political intentions, huge uncertainties remain, and much of the costs and the challenges will fall onto future generations,” the report says.

Climate News Network 26th Nov 2019 read more »

Sellafield Wants Free Rein to Discharge Under the Guise of Reducing Emissions to the Environment. There is a short consultation by the Environment Agency going on now which has been described by the BBC as a proposed “New permit for Sellafield as discharge levels drop”. This is pure Sellafield PR spin. Sellafield says its levels of discharge are dropping because they are no longer reprocessing (dipping spent fuel rods in millions of tonnes of acid and dissolving them to retrieve uranium and plutonium) so they have asked the Environment Agency to cut them some slack ( they have too much slack already!). So to put in a broad brush, Sellafield say they should not be hampered by now defunct (?!) regulations to nominally protect the public or have to report to the Environment Agency as their routine discharges are lower (are they though?). However it is clear that their accidental discharges are becoming routine!

Radiation Free Lakeland 24th Nov 2019 read more »

RADIOACTIVE water is leaking from a nuclear waste storage building as big as 132 double-decker buses at Sellafield. Sellafield Ltd said there is no risk to staff nor the wider community as the water, which covers the solid radioactive waste in the silo, will remain in the ground “for some time”. The leak is believed to be originating from the six older compartments of the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo, which has 22 compartments in total. However, it is not known how much water has been lost so far. The majority of the radioactive material stored there is fuel cladding, which Sellafield says has an intermediate level of radioactivity.

Carlisle News and Star 22nd Nov 2019 read more »