Close Nuclear Leak Plant for Good, Says Sellafield

[chlamor]

Close nuclear leak plant for good, says Sellafield

Thorp reprocessing should never be restarted - boss

Oliver Morgan, industrial editor
Sunday May 15, 2005
The Observer

The owner of the Sellafield site in Cumbria, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, wants its main reprocessing facility to shut forever following a leak of highly radioactive liquefied nuclear fuel containing plutonium and uranium.

The move would bring an early end to the UK's reprocessing programme, which was conceived in the Sixties to provide plutonium for Britain's nuclear deterrent while recycling uranium for civil energy needs.

In any event, the leak of some 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel, dissolved in nitric acid, will keep the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) shut for months.

But senior sources at the NDA, the government body set up to dismantle radioactive facilities at 20 sites across the UK, now believes that keeping the plant shut is the most economical option, and also one that would remove reprocessing - which has always attracted controversy - from the debate over building new nuclear stations which many believe the government is keen to initiate.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1483942,00.html

[benburch]

1. Please note that Bush plans to build several plants like this.

And get us into the plutonium fast breeder reactor business BIG TIME.

[jpak]

2. This was thought provoking

from the link...

<snip>

"Officials indicate that, even when operational, the plant does not make money. "

<snip>

Why on Earth would they continue to operate this facility when it was clearly a money loser???

[Massacure]

3. A lot of energy sources are subsidized.

Coal, oil, and natural gas would be a hell of a lot more expensive if the government didn't give them dirt cheap land on low interest loans.

[chlamor]

4. You Are Correct

as is the previous post. the energy discussion must start with "We must use ALOT less" or all calculations and proposed solutions shall be mistaken from the start.

[jpak]

5. Unfortunately, reprocessing spent fuel will never be profitable

Reprocessed plutonium is 20-fold more expensive than enriched uranium produced from ore.

Furthermore, reprocessed uranium is contaminated with 233-U (a gamma emitter that renders it difficult to handle) and 236-U (a neutron absorber that poisons the fission chain reaction). It has to be re-enriched to a higher concentration of 235-U to be used at all.

No country that reprocesses spent fuel uses reprocessed uranium - none.

And...reprocessing produces an enormous amount of high level liquid waste (that someone else has to deal with - $$$$).

And...other countries that continue to reprocess spent fuel for plutonium (France and Russia) acknowledge that it's uneconomic.

So why throw good money after bad????

[Massacure]

6. Where did I ever say to use reprocessing in my post?

Breeders are the way to go.