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Britain’s nuclear timebomb: Doomed £6bn plan to dispose of plutonium waste

One month after the Japanese tsunami, the world’s biggest reserve of plutonium waste is reaching crisis point. It was meant to be reprocessed and sold – but now no nation will take it. So where is this vast stockpile? Not Fukushima, but Sellafield, Cumbria

By Steve Connor

The nuclear crisis in Japan threatens a carefully choreographed UK Government plan to tackle the world’s biggest mountain of plutonium waste stored at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.  . . . (more)

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/britains-nuclear-timebomb-doomed-6bn-plan-to-dispose-of-plutonium-waste-15140652.html 

MOX Battle: Mixed Oxide Nuclear Fuel Raises Safety Questions

One of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi reactors contains a blend of uranium and plutonium fuel that may soon find use in the U.S. Does it pose more risks than standard uranium fuel?

By John Matson

. . . reactor No. 3 at Fukushima Daiichi, one of the units that has experienced severe problems in the past two weeks, has one characteristic that differentiates it from its neighboring reactors and from any operating reactor in the U.S. Among the hundreds of standard nuclear fuel assemblies in its core, which rely on the splitting of uranium atoms to release energy, are some that contain a mix of uranium and plutonium. This so-called mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel was loaded into Fukushima Daiichi reactor No. 3 in 2010 and has found use in several other countries’ power plants as well. And a big-budget U.S. government project is scheduled to begin producing MOX for domestic utilities in 2016. . . (more)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mox-fuel-nuclear 

Meanwhile … in the USA:

Experts Differ Over U.S. MOX Fuel Plan

Debate persists among experts over a U.S. plan to convert 34 metric tons of excess weapons plutonium to nuclear power plant fuel at a $5 billion facility under construction in South Carolina . . .

. . . Due to the South Carolina MOX plant’s expense, “it’s certainly not something you’d think you could make money off,” Alvarez said. “I kind of see it as a nuclear equivalent to a bridge to nowhere.”

“The [Energy Department] still can’t find a utility that’s willing to take this stuff,” he added. . . (more)
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110329_3069.php