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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