BRITAIN should abandon its de facto moratorium on nuclear power and build two
reactors to 鈥渂urn鈥� its growing stockpile of surplus plutonium, says the nuclear
industry. Such a move would buck the trend among most Western nations of turning
away from nuclear power, and would be bitterly opposed by environmentalists.
About a quarter of the world鈥檚 non-military plutonium鈥�65
tonnes鈥攊s stored at Sellafield in Cumbria by the state-owned company
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). The stockpile comes from spent fuel from Britain鈥檚
reactors, and is expected to increase to 115 tonnes by 2015. According to Bill
Wilkinson, president of the British Nuclear Industry Forum, this 鈥渋s causing
national and international concern鈥� because of the risk that some could be
stolen and made into nuclear bombs.
Wilkinson told a conference in Brussels last month that two new 1200-megawatt
reactors would take 25 years to convert 90 tonnes of plutonium into radioactive
spent fuel, which cannot easily be used for weapons.
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Because the reactors would also generate power, he claims they would save
more than 拢1 billion compared with developing a technology to 鈥渋mmobilise鈥�
and dispose of the plutonium. BNFL, which is awaiting government approval for a
plant to make plutonium fuel at Sellafield, is examining two designs of reactor
which could convert plutonium.
Mike Sadnicki, a nuclear consultant studying the problem, thinks that the
industry may have got its sums wrong. There is a 鈥渟trong possibility鈥�, he says,
that immobilising plutonium will be cheaper than recycling because of the high
capital costs of new reactors. Environmentalists also prefer immobilisation
because they regard it as safer than building plutonium-burning reactors.