Close nuclear leak plant for good, says Sellafield

[struggle4progress]

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. <snip>

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1483998,00.html

[jpak]

1. Another nail in the coffin

:)

[Massacure]

2. It's a step to the future, but not a nail in the coffin.