Nuclear fuel cycle: A UK perspective

The past few years have seen some major developments in UK government policy related to the nuclear fuel cycle, culminating in the publication, through the Government Chief Scientist's Office, of a series of documents that set out the nuclear landscape in the UK up to 2050 and beyond. These documents deal primarily with the future of nuclear energy in the UK and the options for dealing with spent fuel from a possible expansion of new nuclear build. In parallel, management of spent fuel from existing and historical reactor operations (Magnox, AGR and Sizewell B) is the responsibility the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), whose strategy is: “to secure and subsequently implement the most appropriate management approach for Magnox and oxide fuels and, where possible, take advantage of these approaches to manage exotic fuels. Any remaining fuels will continue to be managed on a case-specific basis in a safe and secure manner pending subsequent disposition. The most cost-effective solutions for Magnox and oxide fuels will include continued and extensive use of our existing reprocessing and storage facilities.” The NDA recently set its plans for dealing with spent fuel] and it intends to continue to reprocess until the planned closure of THORP; after which it will store any remaining fuel, pending packing for disposal. In addition to spent fuel, the NDA is responsible for the stockpile of civil separated plutonium, stored on the Sellafield site. A recent report published by the NDA reported the amount of separated Pu owned by the UK at >100t and the cost associated with treating the Pu, either through re-use as thermal MOx fuel or disposal as a waste, is between £2.75billion and £4billion respectively. Subsequent work by the NDA and UK National Nuclear Laboratory considering options for re-use led to the UK government releasing a policy statement in late 2011 stating that the preferred option for UK civil plutonium was to re-use as thermal MOx. The UK is at a cross roads and decisions that are made in the remainder of this decade will set the path for the nuclear fuel cycle for most of the 21st century. Should the UK continue with the present strategy of an open cycle, will partial recycle into MOx be sufficient to deal with the stockpile of civil separated plutonium or does the UK need to adopt a fully closed fuel cycle? These are the key strategic questions facing the UK and to answer each one and assess their relative merits will require R&D. The University of Leeds, together with many other UK universities, is working on a range of R&D programmes that will form the bedrock of developing the UK's nuclear strategy and providing technology options for implementation in the coming decades. Two of the key programmes are focussed on development of separations science and technology for future spent fuel reprocessing. This presentation will set out the landscape for nuclear R&D in the UK for the next 50 years and show how R&D is meeting the challenge of delivering the UK's nuclear strategy.