UK says new MOX plant preferable to plutonium storage, disposal

摘要

The UK government has taken a preliminary positionnthat spending billions of pounds on a new mixed-oxide fuelnplant would be preferable to paying for continued long-termnstorage or for direct disposal of its stockpile of 112 metricntons of civilian separated plutonium.nAbout 28 mt of the UK’s 112 mt of plutonium — thenworld’s largest civilian stockpile of separated plutonium — isnforeign-owned.nThe preliminary policy position is subject to a publicnconsultation, which began February 7 and ends May 10.nIn the policy document, the Department of Energy andnClimate Change said MOX fuel manufacture is a maturentechnology that could reduce the volume of the UK’s stockpilenof plutonium, which it said poses a safety and securitynrisk