Ten years ago to the day, BNFL’s pride and joy, the £multi–billion THORP plant (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) started processing the first of 7000 tonnes of irradiated nuclear fuel. With orders secured largely from overseas customers in advance of the plant’s opening, THORP was to make the company a profit of £500M
Then described by BNFL as the ‘Wonder of the World’ and the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of Sellafield operations. THORP was to have a working life of up to 40 years. It would complete the 7000 tonne order book within the first ten years of operation (the Baseload), by March 2003. To do this, it would process an estimated 1000 tonnes per year after a staged build-up in the first four years of operation. Further contracts had been placed for the plant’s second 10-year period and BNFL was quick to impress upon a doubting world that more contracts from overseas were in the pipeline.
Ten years on, THORP’s actual performance shows BNFL’s early claims to have been predictably inaccurate. Just 5000 tonnes have been reprocessed; the plant is over 2 years behind schedule; has lost contracts and won no new overseas orders. Not once has it reached anywhere near its annual target of 1000 tonnes. Dogged by technical problems and accidents, THORP’s Baseload period has had to be extended from 2003/4 to 2007/8, much to the anger and frustration of overseas customers. The suggested closure date of 2010 for THORP through lack of new orders, hinted at last year by BNFL, will see the plant’s much vaunted design life of up to 40 years slashed to just 16 years.
A CORE spokesperson said today “ No amount of BNFL hype will hide the reality of today’s figures which show the plant to have been the fiasco we and others predicted. The only predictable thing about THORP has been its significant contribution to Sellafield’s environmental discharges and the nuclear wastes it has produced ”
Operational restrictions on THORP, first imposed by the NII in 2001, resulted from BNFL’s inability to deal with the liquid high level wastes produced by reprocessing. Until vitrification of these wastes works to the level expected by the NII, THORP can only operate on a start/stop basis for the next few years.
With its poor track record and diminishing prospects, the need to reprocess the post-Baseload contracts (THORP’s second 10-year period) is increasingly being questioned. Unlike the Baseload business which was secured from 7 European countries and the UK, THORP’s post-Baseload business (second 10-year period) ) consists of contracts with just UK’s British Energy and Germany.
The latter contracts , originally set at around 950 tonnes, are now understood to have been significantly down-sized to just a few hundred tonnes – the utilities preferring to store their own fuel in Germany. The post-Baseload business from near bankrupt British Energy is known to have been secured at rock-bottom prices to BNFL as part of the Government’s much criticised rescue package for British Energy.
CORE’s spokesperson added “ With little prospect of BNFL or THORP getting its act together, this lame duck performance is not going to turn in much of a profit. Like all white elephants, the plant should be put out of its misery without further delay and we will continue to press the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to do just that when it takes over Sellafield and the running of THORP next year”