The profile of Martin Forwood of CORE (Whitehaven News 4/1/07) quotes
him as saying “reprocessing is environmentally and economically
absurd”. This is completely wrong. He appears to suggest that BNFL and
NDA are concealing THORP financial data that would support this
contention.
The fact is that the economics of recycling spent fuel in nuclear power
stations (reprocessing is a key part of this process) has been widely
studied and the results published in the open literature. There are no
secrets. The studies use basic cost data appropriate to a large nuclear
programme. For example, if the worldwide nuclear generation business
turned to recycling, about 15 THORPs would be required and it will be
their average costs which will count.
For the type of reactor used now and likely for the immediate future
(mainly PWR) the economics of recycling are very finely balanced. The
cost of electricity generation could increase or decrease but the
possible range is small, at most ± 0.1p/kwh or a few percent of the
total. Against this background it is not surprising that Utilities
decide to just store their spent fuel and “wait and see”. They don’t
need such small savings to compete with other electricity generating
options: much larger gains accrue from, for example, escalating gas
prices, carbon taxes, storing CO2 underground.
What is not finely balanced is the stupendous benefit that
reprocessing/recycling will bring when the time comes to deploy fast
breeder reactors as uranium becomes more expensive. This system will
burn uranium so efficiently that known reserves will last the world for
1000’s years. This frightens CORE and other anti-nuclear groups.
Recently they have been claiming that nuclear power is not worthwhile
because uranium resources will soon be exhausted. The truth is that
nuclear power can provide a large-scale, cheap, clean and reliable
source of electricity for 1000’s years. Reprocessing and recycling is
the key and, to borrow a word, it would be absurd to dispose of spent
fuel as a waste.
This is the important “legacy” from my generation and we are proud of
it. Sellafield should concentrate on advertising the skills, knowledge
and experience that it has and is accumulating through the continued
operation of THORP and the MOX plant. The last thing that a Government
with vision should allow is the premature closure of plants which are
the forerunners of this tremendous prospect. Such support will not be
costly.
