The Government response (2nd April 2009) to a Parliamentary Question from MP Michael Meacher this week confirms the economic and production failures that have become synonymous with the crippled SMP.
A Table provided in the response shows that SMP, with an original annual production rate of 120 tonnes of Mixed Oxide fuel (MOX, in which plutonium is combined with uranium) for overseas customers, has produced just 6.3 tonnes of fuel in the seven years since it opened in 2002. Further, the Table shows SMP to have suffered a significant financial loss in each and every year of operation – once overheads and operating costs (as well as the costs of having to sub-contract work to its European rivals) are deducted from sales. Since 2002, SMP’s total loss amounts to £626M, with the loss for financial year ending 31st March 2009 estimated at £89.9M. By comparison, in 2001 prior to the plant opening and as part of a public consultation exercise, SMP was given a Net Positive Value of £199M by independent consultants Arthur D Little (ADL).
Because of its stuttering performance, SMP’s future has been subject of continuous review by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) who took ownership of the Sellafield site and its commercial operations in 2005. Apart from two reviews carried out by ADL in 2005 and 2006, all other reviews have been carried out ‘in-house’ with their findings withheld from the public domain.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said today:
“These figures wholly vindicate the claims of all those who opposed SMP’s construction and subsequent operation since the first planning application was submitted by the industry in 1992. With little if any sign of improved performance on the horizon, the NDA must honour its obligation to make best use of taxpayer’s money and pull the plug on SMP without further delay “
SMP’s sales to date consist of just 12 MOX fuel assemblies, produced between 2004 and 2007, for Switzerland’s Beznau power station. These were delivered to the customer in three shipments (2005/06/07). In 2007 work started on an order for Germany’s Grohnde power station, and two MOX fuel assemblies were completed in summer 2008. Today, some nine months later, no further assemblies have been completed. The target of completing and delivering the German order (8 MOX fuel assemblies) in September this year is likely to be beyond SMP’s capability.
The production of MOX fuel involves three stages – fabricating fuel pellets (plutonium and uranium), inserting the pellets into fuel rods (rod production) and combining a specified number of fuel rods into a fuel assembly.
All three production stages have suffered technical problems since the first plutonium was introduced into the plant in 2002, and current problems are focused on making up the fuel assemblies. In its 2006 assessment of SMP, ADL concluded that as a result of equipment breakdown and production line bottlenecks, the fully automatic operation of SMP was now “only a remote possibility” and that the plant’s net value “had seriously eroded”.