Plutonium Disposition Technical Meeting
04 June 2008
Location: Manchester
We held a technical workshop 4th/5th June 2008 with around 30 representatives from industry, government and the regulators to discuss plutonium disposition.
The workshop formed part of our continuing work to compile an options paper for Government on the future management of the UK civil nuclear plutonium stockpile.
This was a closed workshop due to security sensitivities but is summarised below.
Workshop Summary
The workshop aims were to:
- agree the spread of potential options for plutonium disposition in the UK;
- identify any fundamental or major challenges to the assumptions and underpinning data used in the NDA’s macro-economic model; and
- understand the Pu disposition options and identify any knowledge gaps.
We made a number of presentations, including summaries of the history of the current national position and the work taking place outside the UK.
We examined the current macro-economic modelling structure, looking at its key principles and the learning points it had thrown up. We discussed the issues and requirements of storage along with the status for technologies for immobilisation and the reuse of plutonium in reactors.
The key points from the workshop were:
- UK plutonium has significantly different properties to any other long-term stored plutonium and needs to given special consideration.
- Indefinite storage of plutonium in its current form is NOT a long-term option.
- Interim Storage (and associated operations such as repacking) will be required for at least the next 15-20 years, no matter which option is selected.
- The UK needs to generate its own data on UK civil plutonium grades using its own expertise and facilities.
- Re-use is the only technically mature (commercial plant and process) option and is the only option with the potential to give the UK a financial return.
- Purchase of an “off-the-shelf” MOx plant is not possible for UK plutonium properties and UK Regulatory requirements.
- There is a high degree of confidence that immobilisation options could be technically delivered, although the implementation times for such options are likely to be lengthy.
- There is a high likelihood that the UK would lead the way in plutonium immobilisation demonstration, which may lead to potential for technology export.
- There are key knowledge gaps in repository requirements for all final product forms.
- All options are expensive.
- The Macro-Economic Model is highly regarded, and seen to provide an appropriate level of analysis for all the potential plutonium management options under consideration.
The view of attendees was that the workshop was extremely successful, achieving an improved level of understanding. We identified that more work needed to be done to understand the impact on repository costs and on the levels of uncertainty associated with potential solutions.
We told attendees that a draft strategy paper would go out for comment in mid-August 2008 with a workshop for stakeholders scheduled for October before the options paper is presented to Government by the end of this year. See:
Plutonium Options for Comment August 2008 (2Mb)
Plutonium Workshop October 2008
The UK has built up a significant stockpile of around 100 tonnes of separated civil plutonium as a result of historic reprocessing operations since the 1950s.
Current UK policy is long-term storage however this does not provide a final method of dealing with the material nor allow the development of site closure plans for Sellafield and at Dounreay where it is currently safely and securely stored.
