UK swaps plutonium to balance MOX policies

摘要

A series of exchanges has seen the UK take control of three tonnes of plutonium it had been storing for foreign firms. The country's goal is to use plutonium stocks as reactor fuel for power generation.Having embarked on a national nuclear energy and research programme in the 1950s, the UK has over time separated and recovered plutonium from its used reactor fuel. The largest and most recent plant, Thorp, also undertook reprocessing for utility customers in Europe and Japan. Stockpiles of the resulting UK and foreign plutonium are all stored at Sellafield.