The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority wrapped up most spent fuel reprocessing during 2022, one of the major advances for the agency charged with cleaning up the kingdom’s early nuclear sites, according to a new report.
The U.K. National Decommissioning Authority (NDA) “strategy is to bring the reprocessing programme to an end,” according to the report released last week by NDA Group Chief Executive David Peattie.
In July, spent fuel reprocessing ended at the Sellafield Magnox plant in northern England. The facility should be fully cleaned out next year, according to the report. The closure followed by three years the shuttering of the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria, England.
Now, no more oxide fuels will be reprocessed, according to the latest annual NDA report. However, “Sellafield continues to receive oxide fuel under commercial contracts with EDF Energy,” an integrated energy company, wholly owned by the French state-owned EDF Group.
In June 2021 NDA, the U.K. Government and EDF Energy entered into new decommissioning arrangements for seven Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor stations, according to the report. As a result, NDA will take on the future ownership of the stations after defueling for decommissioning. The work will be undertaken by the NDA subsidiary Magnox Ltd.
Some remaining legacy Magnox fuel from reprocessing remains in spent fuel ponds, according to the report. The remainder will be recovered and temporarily “stored in purpose-built containers by 2039,” the report states. All the remaining Magnox fuel should be in interim storage by 2042, according to the report.
While progress has been made in the United Kingdom’s remediation, about 950 hectares of land, around 2,350 acres, have yet to be released for reuse, according to the report.
