In a recent announcement which took other Nordic countries by surprise, Swedish company Studsvik-SVAFO has revealed plans to send a small consignment of research reactor fuel to Sellafield for reprocessing in the ageing B205 Magnox reprocessing plant.
Amounting to no more than 5 tonnes, the spent fuel originated in the Studvik research reactor R-1, closed down in 1970 and located in Stockholm’s Royal Technical Academy. Planned for transport to Sellafield in the summer of 2007, the reprocessed fuel will produce around 1600 litres of highly active waste and more than 1 kilogram of plutonium. A final decision to go ahead with the shipment is expected to be made this summer.
CORE’s spokesperson Martin Forwood said “ whilst the small quantity of Swedish fuel will literally be a ‘drop in the ocean’ for Sellafield, we will oppose both the plan and the principle that a foreign utility can dump its nuclear problems on West Cumbria. We will be looking to the NDA, in an early test of its true commitment to clean-up,to treat the plan with the disdain it deserves”
The announcement by Studvik-SVAFO is a re-hash of a plan that surfaced in 2000 for the same fuel which they then claimed had to be sent to Sellafield because, after 30 years of storage, it was badly corroded and difficult to handle. The plan was scrapped following protests from Norway who viewed it as being in breach of the broad agreement shared by Nordic countries on Sellafield, and as weakening the credibility of the Nordic effort against Sellafield’s radioactive sea discharges.
Kept in the dark again by the Swedes, the Norwegian Environment Minister Knut Arild Hareide has stated his strong objections to the current plan and said he will be raising the issue with his Swedish counterpart. In a change to procedures since 2000, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) says it is no longer necessary for a Swedish utility to get permission from its Government to export Swedish fuel to Sellafield.
In its Draft Strategy Document published this week, the NDA has confirmed that any new reprocessing contracts will have to be evaluated against strict criteria agreed with the Government. One criterion is that any new business must be consistent with clean-up plans for Sellafield.