Cumbria County Council's Cabinet has urged the Government to press ahead with the necessary preparations to allow the construction of a new generation of reactors to recycle mixed plutonium and uranium oxide fuel (MOX) at Sellafield.

In its response to a Government consultation on how the UK's 112-tonne stockpile of civil separated plutonium should be managed, Cumbria County Council's response stated that the Government should "consider the case for constructing one or more dedicated MOX burning reactors on available land beside the Sellafield and NuGeneration Ltd sites". The Cabinet response also "urges Government to now undertake a full generic sustainability assessment for public examination that sets out the case for plutonium recycling, should include costs, environmental, socio-economic, intergenerational, safety, security, proliferation, political, international, technical, transportation, radiological, disposability, and carbon emission impacts to fully underpin a plutonium recycling policy".

-- Advertisement --

The Government's eventual decision on how plutonium stocks should be managed (other options are to continue to store them overground or immobilise them and dispose of them in an underground geological facility) is a crucial one for Cumbria as most of the UK's plutonium is already stored at Sellafield. For West Cumbria a new MOX Plant at Sellafield would be a very significant investment providing around 5,000 construction jobs and ongoing plant employment. The Sellafield site is the obvious location for a new MOX plant because of the location of the stockpiled plutonium and the Sellafield workforce has the appropriate skills base to operate a new plant - the current Sellafield MOX plant supports a workforce of around 1,000.

Estimates suggest there is sufficient plutonium in the UK stockpile to supply two new build reactors, of the type currently considered for construction in the UK, with 30% MOX fuel loading for 60 years.

Cllr Tim Knowles, Cumbria County Council's Cabinet member responsible for environment, said: "Using the existing stocks as an asset rather than a liability makes sense environmentally, economically and from a safety and security perspective. The skills exist in Cumbria to construct a new generation of reactors to take MOX fuel and it is a proven and available technology that offers greater certainty of success than the other options on the table. We are urging Government to hear Cumbria's message loud and clear and press ahead with the necessary steps to make this happen."

(CD/KMcA)