Last updated at 14:02, Friday, 07 August 2009

NUCLEAR fuel rejected by Japan in disgrace ten years ago is finally to be reprocessed. In a multi million pound scandal, the Mox produced by Sellafield was returned after a whistleblower said a check on the fuel was falsified by bored workers. Now the fuel will be taken to France for reprocessing.
JOHN SIMPSON reports.

IN one of Sellafield’s darkest hours, a whistleblower revealed bored workers failed to carry out a visual check on part of a mixed oxide (Mox) fuel assembly, then falsified documents to cover up their tracks.

The 1999 scandal saw Sellafield’s chief executive resign and five workers sacked.

The shipment of eight Mox fuel assemblies left Barrow for Japan in a blaze of protest from anti-nuclear campaigners.

The Mox, made from recycled plutonium and uranium for Japanese power stations, was supposed to be the first of many orders.

A whistleblower told a national newspaper that a relatively minor visual check on the small metal fuel pellets, that are stacked in rods to make up the Mox fuel assemblies, had been skipped and then falsified in paperwork by bored workers.

Japan told British Nuclear Fuel Limited, Sellafield’s owner at the time, it had lost confidence in the English plant and would not accept the fuel.

Experts at the time said despite the missed check, the fuel was perfectly safe and assured by other checks that were done.

But the public relations and commercial damage had been done and the nuclear industry’s enemies had a field day.

Despite hopes, no more Mox has been ordered from Sellafield by Japan since the incident, though union officials at Sellafield say they are confident it will happen one day. The two armed ships that delivered the load in 1999 sailed back to Japan in 2002 to retrieve the assemblies.

Now Sellafield bosses have worked out a plan that they hope will, by 2015, finally end the nuclear plant’s most embarrassing episode.

A solution for the unused fuel has been agreed by Sellafield Ltd, which is now owned by an American, French and English consortium.

A statement from International Nuclear Services, which is run by the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority and oversees the movement of nuclear fuel, said: “Sellafield Ltd has been working for a number of years to evaluate the best option for this fuel and contractual arrangements have now been put in place. In 2002 a consignment of eight unirradiated Mox fuel assemblies was returned to Sellafield from Japan.

“At the time, it was agreed between BNFL and the UK government that these fuel assemblies, now of Nuclear Decommissioning Agency ownership, would be processed and the useful constituents separated out for potential reuse. We have now identified a route for processing these eight fuel assemblies together with a further eight unirradiated mox fuel assemblies manufactured at Sellafield in the late 1990’s but never exported.

“In 2014/15 the sixteen unirradiated Mox fuel assemblies will be transported to France to be processed in a facility at Cap La Hague operated by Areva NC (which now part owns Sellafield).

“The reusable constituents will be separated out and made available for making into new fuel. The waste products will be returned to Sellafield.”

In 1999 the Mox shipment brought demonstrators to Barrow to protest at its departure, and a big police presence to counter them.

Reacting to Sellafield Ltd’s new plan, a statement from Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive
Environment, based in Barrow, said: “The shipment of the plutonium fuel assemblies, sailing against widespread international condemnation, was subject to further humiliation as it approached Japan when it was revealed that the Quality Assurance data for the fuel had been falsified by bored workers in MDF (Mox Demonstration Facility, the forerunner to the existing Sellafield Mox Plant).

“The revelation led to major repercussions for Sellafield, including the resignation of its chief executive, the sacking of several MDF workers, an investigation into MDF’s operation by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the agreement by the UK government to pay damages to Kansai Electric of £40 million as well as the cost of returning the fuel to Sellafield. It also led to the
abandonment of further business deals by Japanese utilities with Sellafield – a killer-blow to BNFL’s hopes of securing large Mox fuel orders for Sellafield Mox Plant.”

The statement added the Mox fuel will be dismantled and the pellets will be crushed at La Hague
reprocessing plant which has facilities Sellafield lacks, and the plutonium recovered. CORE said it has learned the plutonium recovered from the 16 Mox fuel assemblies will be retained at La Hague as ‘repayment’ for the use of French plutonium in completing Mox fuel orders that had to be sub-contracted by the struggling Sellafield Mox Plant. It is expected La Hague will recover around 500kg of plutonium – the eight Japanese Mox fuel assemblies were known to have contained 255kg.

The remainder of the recovered material, classified as Plutonium Contaminated Material (PCM) will be returned to Sellafield for storage or disposal. CORE says the new Sellafield Mox Plant was built in anticipation of producing 120 Mox fuel assemblies per year, many for Japan.

The organisation added: “Today, having produced only a handful of Mox fuel assemblies for European customers after eight years of operation, not one order has been secured from Japan. With its woeful performance under constant review by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) who took ownership of the plant in 2005, a decision on whether or not to close SMP will be publicly announced by the NDA by September this year.”

Peter Kane, a GMB union convenor, said his understanding of what happened 10 years ago was that the fuel was perfectly safe and the partly faked check was an extra one the Japanese had asked for.

Other Mox had been produced for European customers without that check, he said.

Mr Kane said Sellafield had a lot of Japanese plutonium and his understanding was the Japanese still wanted that returned as Mox fuel at some stage.

The union says there is also enough plutonium from UK power stations to run two big reactors for 60 years, and that could be turned into Mox fuel for the UK if the British government wanted to go down that route.

But if Mox was to be made for Japan and Europe and the UK, a new plant will be needed to give
Sellafield the capacity to deal with the home and the export markets.

Mr Kane said: “We are not pessimistic. We have got to believe there is a future for the Sellafield Mox Plant.

“I think there is a good possibility of getting orders from Japan.”

First published at 13:58, Friday, 07 August 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk