No plutonium reactor at Sellafield
JAN 25, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.025836
Guardian : General Electric (GE) Hitachi’s plan to build a sodium-cooled, plutonium-burning fast reactor at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site has been rejected by the UK government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Known as PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module), the new design was intended to convert the 82-ton plutonium stockpile at the site into power. The NDA concluded that PRISM’s technology is neither mature nor commercially proven. There are also security risks inherent in the proposal, because it would require converting the existing plutonium stockpile from an oxide form to a metal form, which is easier to make into bombs. In addition, the conversion would create a substantial quantity of plutonium-contaminated salt as a byproduct, which would also need to be managed and stored.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
