Monday 19 November 2018

Commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing ends at Sellafield site

The reprocessing of commercial nuclear fuel from across the world has come to an end at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.

Sellafield Ltd and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said the last of the nuclear fuel was sheared, i.e. when nuclear fuel is cut into pieces at the beginning of the reprocessing site, at Thorp (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) last week.

It marks one of the final steps in Sellafield’s transformation towards becoming a site that is solely focused on decommissioning and hazard reduction.

The decision to end nuclear fuel reprocessing at Thorp this year was decided in 2012 due to the majority of its customers opting to store their fuel rather than reprocess it.

Nuclear Energy Minister Richard Harrington said: “This marks a new and welcome chapter in Sellafield’s decommissioning and environmental clean-up journey, protecting the public from hazards, ensuring the land can be re-used in the future.”