Areva Says UK Should Continue Reprocessing To Provide Fuel For New N-Plants
Written by NucNet
Thursday, 11 October 2007
NucNet News No. 223
11 Oct (NucNet): Operating two European pressurised water reactors
(EPRs) in the UK could safely use up the country's entire stockpile of
plutonium within the units' operating lifetimes, the Areva group has
told the UK government.
Areva, which with Electricite de France (EDF) recently unveiled details of the EPR unit design they are proposing for possible new build in the UK, was responding to the UK's consultation process on the future of nuclear power.
Areva, which made its submission document publicly available yesterday, the day the consultation period ended, said the country's plutonium stockpile "represents a valuable energy resource in its own right".
The company said it "certainly does not advocate" closure of the UK's thermal oxide reprocessing plant (Thorp) at Sellafield, but said that if the plant were to be eventually closed, "solutions would still exist in France to reprocess UK materials".
France's experience has shown that reprocessing and recycling of used fuel into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel could be managed safely and efficiently, Areva said. The company added that EDF recycles around 350 tonnes of uranium annually recovered from reprocessing and that EDF plans to double this figure by 2009.
In September 2007 the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, said the best option was for the UK to convert its plutonium into MOX for fuel in nuclear reactor units.
A study carried out for the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and published earlier this year said an inventory of core nuclear material showed the UK has some 60,000 tonnes of heavy metal equivalent - the mass of uranium and/or plutonium in the materials - from sources such as Thorp and residue from enrichment of natural uranium for the manufacture of advanced gas-cooled reactor fuel.
The UK government said in June 2007 that Thorp, in north-west England, may not be back online until 2010 or 2011. Thorp has been shut since April 2005 following an incident which led to 83 cubic metres of dissolver liquor (fuel dissolved in nitric acid) leaking from a fractured primary containment pipe into the secondary containment of the feed clarification cell.
The country's Health and Safety Executive gave consent in January 2007 for Thorp's restart. The facility will be ready to continue reprocessing spent fuel as soon as supporting evaporative capacity is re-established, expected to be around the autumn of 2007.
Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
Energy Giants Prepare For UK New Build (News No. 127, 23 May 2007)
UK New Build Does Not Need Subsidies, Says BE (News in Brief No. 28, 24 September 2007)
EDF Can Deliver New UK Unit 'By 2017' (News No. 220, 8 October 2007)
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