The U.K. has an economic opportunity of up to GBP10 billion in converting its legacy stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel into fuel for use in new nuclear reactors, generating jobs and revenues while reducing the waste disposal costs to the taxpayer, a report from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment said Tuesday.
The U.K. has an economic opportunity of up to GBP10 billion in
converting its legacy stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel into fuel for use in new
nuclear reactors, generating jobs and revenues while reducing the waste
disposal costs to the taxpayer, a report from the Smith School of Enterprise
and the Environment said Tuesday.
The GBP10 billion opportunity includes GBP2 billion to GBP3 billion investment
in a new Mixed Oxide Fuel plant to recycle the plutonium and the GBP1 billion
to GBP4 billion refurbishment of the
U.K.
's
existing Thorp plant to reprocess spent fuel. It also includes revenues from
sales of the fuel and the impact on supply chain, the report said.
"Currently the
U.K.
has a
window of opportunity to deal with its nuclear material and spent fuel
management and to maximize the value of its existing assets," said David
King, director of the
Smith
School
and
former
U.K.
government chief scientist.
"The renaissance in new nuclear build creates an advantageous way of using
these legacy materials as fuel for new nuclear power plants," King added,
referring to utility companies' plans to build 16 gigawatts of new nuclear
capacity in the
U.K.
by
2025.
Currently, the
U.K.
's 19
reactors at 10 nuclear power stations have a total generating capacity of
between 6 gigawatts and 7 gigawatts, providing around 18% of the
U.K.
's
electricity mix.
The report evaluates four scenarios to deal with the
U.K.
's
spent nuclear fuel, which includes the world's largest stockpile of plutonium
at around 100 metric tons, 60,000 tons of uranium and 6,000 tons of spent fuel
from its fleet of advanced gas-cooled reactors.
The nuclear materials are a result of the
U.K.
's
past nuclear programs and its disposal as waste is a public liability to be
covered by the government, and ulitmately, the taxpayer.
The report's first scenario: to do nothing and plan the spent fuel's long-term
storage and disposal would be the cheapest initially but would cost the most in
the long term and wouldn't generate any income.
King said the report had estimated the costs of storing the plutonium and
uranium to 2050 and beyond at around GBP8 billion.
In the second option, a new MOX plant is constructed to process the plutonium
into MOX fuel for new reactors. The third option adds the refurbishment of the
Thorp plant to reprocess the spent AGR fuel and the fourth scenario adds excess
capacity at the Thorp plant to take in spent fuel from overseas for
reprocessing.
The commercial risk rises through scenarios
two to four
, but the cumulative net cost falls as revenues are
generated from the sale of the fuel and the cost of disposing of the legacy
nuclear waste is transferred from a public liability to a funded waste program.
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