The manager of the United Kingdom’s Sellafield site on Wednesday announced the formal closure of one of the world’s two remaining spent fuel reprocessing facilities.
The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, better known as Thorp, recycled 9,331 metric tons of used fuel from 30 clients in nine nations over 24 years, according to a press release from Sellafield Ltd. The last reprocessing operation began on Nov. 9.
The facility, which stretches one-third of a mile, will be used for storage of spent fuel into the 2070s. The radioactive material is intended eventually to be placed into a U.K. deep geologic repository.
All personnel whose jobs are being eliminated following the plant’s closure can take work elsewhere at Sellafield, a former nuclear power and weapons complex in Cumbria that is now undergoing environmental cleanup.
“We helped to keep the lights on in the U.K. and around the world and generated £9bn in revenue for the U.K.,” Sellafield Ltd. CEO Paul Foster said in the release. “I’m immensely proud of Thorp’s contribution and I’d like to thank the workforce for their unwavering dedication and professionalism throughout a period of unprecedented change.”
Construction of the plant cost £1.8 billion ($2.3 billion), but its fate was sealed by 2012 due to lower demand for reprocessing. Clients now largely store their spent fuel rather than shipping it for reprocessing and reuse, the release says.
The shutdown leaves only the La Hague reprocessing facility operated by French nuclear firm Orano, World Nuclear News reported.
Sellafield Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that manages operations at the site.
