Managing our plutonium legacy

Sellafield is home to almost 140 tons of separated plutonium, the largest quantity of material under civil safeguards anywhere in the world. Government is still to make a final decision on the whether to reuse this material to fuel a new fleet of nuclear reactors, or whether to immobilise and dispose of it as waste. Here, we consider whether Government’s preferred option of reuse is realisable, and scientific underpinning required to deliver the alternative disposal option.