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+--- Thread: Britain has 139 tons of plutonium. That’s a real problem. (/thread-8458.html)
Britain has 139 tons of plutonium. That’s a real problem. - C C - Apr 19, 2020
https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/britain-has-139-tons-of-plutonium-thats-a-real-problem/
INTRO: The United Kingdom’s last plutonium reprocessing plant, B205, located in Sellafield in northern England, will shut down by the end of 2020. It will bring an end to the era of plutonium separation in the country, which began 68 years ago. Because the United Kingdom never used any of the material it recouped from reprocessing except in nuclear weapons, today it has amassed a stockpile of almost 139 metric tons of separated plutonium.
This creates lasting problems: Plutonium stored in Sellafield is highly toxic and poses a permanent risk of proliferation. It is enough material to build tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. According to parliamentary estimates, storage will cost the British government about 73 million pounds a year for the next century. But after decades of public and private consultation, there is still no accepted plan for its disposition.
In the meantime, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is working on the consolidation of the stockpiles in Sellafield and developing the capability to retreat the packages to allow for long-term storage once the government makes a final decision on permanent disposal. The United Kingdom views the material as a resource and is pursuing options that involve burning the plutonium in reactors, even though multiple assessments have shown risks associated with such a choice, namely immature concepts and technology. A better alternative would be to treat it as waste and begin planning for its permanent immobilization and burial.
Where did it come from? In the beginning, the British plutonium separation program was justified by military needs. A few years later, nuclear euphoria led to an increasing number of civil nuclear power plants and to dreams of nuclear-powered cars and planes. It was predicted that uranium resources would not be able to fulfill the need. As a result, the idea of a “closed” fuel cycle was born: instead of using nuclear fuel once and throwing it away, the spent fuel is reprocessed and reused in (mostly fast) reactors. In theory, this would allow greater utilization of uranium. However, the concept has never been demonstrated on an industrial scale, and only a few countries still aim at closing the nuclear fuel cycle.
From 1956 until 2015 the United Kingdom operated 26 Magnox reactors for commercial use... (MORE)