Britain's giant stockpile of nuclear waste includes over a hundred tonnes of plutonium and thirty five,000 tonnes of depleted uranium. The plutonium particularly presents a security risk as a possible target for terrorists and can price billions to lose safely. the govt. is currently considering choices for putting off or managing it.
Decc's most well-liked choice is to make a plant to mix the plutonium with alternative materials in so-called mixed-oxide fuel (Mox), that is a smaller amount dangerous than this plutonium-oxide powder. However, there's currently no large-scale capability for consuming Mox fuel, and also the previous Mox plant at Sellafield has been shut once being beset by operating and monetary issues. additionally, Mox fuel permits solely a little proportion of the energy within the waste to be converted into electricity.
The engineering firm GE Hitachi has submitted another proposal based mostly on their Prism quick reactor, that may consume the plutonium as fuel whereas generating electricity.
"It's a awfully elegant concept that we should always attempt to use [the waste] as efficiently as attainable. I undoubtedly realize it a pretty idea", said Prof David MacKay, Decc's chief scientific adviser.
Recent news reports have recommended this proposal has been rejected by the govt. and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on the grounds of being too off from industrial viability.
However, the Guardian has confirmed that talks between GE Hitachi, Decc and also the NDA are continuing. MacKay told the Guardian: "My position as chief scientific adviser at Decc is that i feel Prism is a stimulating style and i might wish to see [details concerning its credibility] figured out." A spokesperson for the NDA said: "The statement that the NDA has rejected the GE Hitachi Prism reactor is totally while not foundation." He added that this spherical of discussions "might last concerning six months".
Fast reactor technology was developed by the US government over several decades till 1994 when President Clinton terminated all nuclear power analysis. GE Hitachi's Prism reactor could be a industrial offshoot of that government-funded analysis. No Prism reactors have nonetheless been sold, however GE believes it may construct one in precisely a number of years and the time taken to license the technology.
The reactor could be a mounted little size, manufacturing around 311MW of power – like a hundred giant wind turbines running non-stop or 1 / 4 of a traditional nuclear plant. The reactor core is submerged in an exceedingly pool of liquid sodium, that acts as a coolant, transferring the warmth to the turbines where electricity is generated. Designers say that passive safety options make sure that the reactor will not go into meltdown if its power supply is stop, that is what happened in last year's accident at Fukushima, Japan.
In the proposal currently below discussion, a combine of Prism reactors would be put in at Sellafield and optimised to consume the plutonium stockpile as quickly as attainable. If, however, the govt. determined to prioritise low-carbon power generation instead of speedy waste disposal, a bigger variety of Prism reactors may theoretically be combined with a fuel recycling system to extract the maximum amount electricity as attainable from the plutonium and depleted uranium.
According to new figures calculated for the Guardian by the yankee author and quick reactor advocate Tom Blees, this various approach may – given an oversized enough variety of reactors – turn out enough low-carbon electricity from Britain's waste stockpile to produce the united kingdom at current rates of demand for over five hundred years.
MacKay confirmed this figure. "As an higher certain on what you may get from those resources in quick reactors i feel it is a terribly cheap estimate. in point of fact you'd get every kind of problems therefore you would not achieve the higher certain however I still suppose it is a cheap place to begin."
However, he added that free or low-cost fuel wasn't in itself sufficient to create cheap nuclear energy. "When you're thinking that concerning the economics of the low-carbon transition, it's not the nuclear fuel that is the expensive bit – it is the power stations and also the alternative facilities that associate with them."
The cost of any Prism installation would rely on unknown quantities together with the main points of the licensing necessities. However, Eric Loewen, chief engineer at GE Hitachi nuclear, claims that the technology ought to be economically competitive as a result of its little and fixed-size modular style, that permits it to be made in an off-site factory.
MacKay said, "I suppose it's credible that it can be cheaper [than Mox] however it's up to GE to inform us the worth tag". He added that the choice choice of constructing Mox wouldn't be straightforward either. " you have got to create a giant facility to create the Mox fuel and you would like to possess a load of reactors that may settle for the Mox fuel, and that we do not have either of these in place nonetheless."
MacKay additionally said that he supported "long-term analysis and development" into new reactor technologies that would be safer and additional economical than current styles. He argued that such analysis shouldn't be seen as a threat to renewable technologies like wind and solar, that were crucial however not sufficient on their own to fulfill the UK's formidable carbon targets.
"If you've got seriously checked out ways that of constructing plans that add up you come back to the conclusion that you just want virtually everything and you would like it terribly quick – immediately. {you want|you would like|you wish} all the credible technologies that may develop at scale … i do not suppose anyone serious would say that we have a tendency to solely need nuclear … however equally i feel it's unrealistic to mention we have a tendency to may get there solely with renewables."
Another next-generation nuclear technology that convert nuclear waste into plentiful electricity is that the molten salt reactor (MSR), additionally recognize because the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). MacKay said the MSR is "another style that appears terribly fascinating and that i suppose the primary prototype can most likely get inbuilt the USA within the next few years, if the thorium advocates over there are successful – and i am progressing to be terribly interested to ascertain how it works. On paper, that sort of reactor may expend plutonium furthermore, however we'd want detailed styles that are costed before we will seriously take into account that choice."
