The Decaying Future of THORP
By Cameron Mitchell

Sellafield’s thermal oxide reprocessing plant (THORP) was once hailed as the saviour of the British Nuclear Industry, bringing in much needed finance from Japan by dealing with its nuclear waste, whilst generating an unlimited supply of power. But just ten years after construction, the future of Britain’s largest yen earner looks as bleak as the Cumbrian coastline on which it is mounted.

Last month the Guardian Newspaper reported that the £2.8bn facility is winding down its commercial reprocessing and shifting its focus towards the management of radioactive waste. Although the current owners of the plant, the British Nuclear Fuels Limited, refused to confirm the report they did not directly contradict it and stated that they will honour all existing contracts. Their contract book currently extends until the end of the decade; the date the report predicted THORP would close. And no new contracts will be signed without the Government’s approval.
The BNFL stated,
“Any new business for THORP will depend upon the wishes of our customers, the Nuclear Decommission-ing Authority which will assume ownership of the site in 2005 and ultimately the sanction of the government”.
The fact that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will assume ownership in two years suggests that there may be some truth in the report.

NUCLEAR DREAM
Reprocessing was once the nuclear dream. For half a century the procedure has reduced the volume of high-level waste by recovering unused uranium and plutonium from spent fuel elements. In addition, the levels of radioactivity in such ‘light’ waste falls much more rapidly than in spent fuel itself. Built at a cost of £2.7 billion, THORP was the solution to an accident at the B204 Calder Hall plant in the early seventies, which badly disrupted British Nuclear Fuel’s commercial plans to reprocess fuel on commission from foreign countries.
However, the plant faced much opposition who argued that plutonium and uranium were not needed. The process also produced hard-to-manage radioactive waste; this would make the cost of storing it much higher than storing the spent fuel itself (which could eventually be disposed of). Residents in Louth, Down and Dublin, which is only sixty miles from the plant, also raised concerns about radioactive emissions coming over the Irish Sea.

After a high court battle THORP eventually opened in 1994. Though by this time many of the contracts were ten years old. One third of the contracts with foreign clients were signed before 1976. By the time production began the price of uranium had plummeted. Overseas orders have since fallen.

Last year an extension of THORP began production, MOX, hoping to sell mixed oxide fuel abroad. However they only received minuscule contracts, about eleven percent of the plants capacity. And none with Japan, which are needed to make the plant viable. The closure of THORP has made the government’s sanction of MOX a white elephant. Both plants are dependable on each other – the closure of THORP is surely the end of the MOX plant too.

NEWS WELCOMED
Opposition at home welcomed the news of THORP’s closure. Eddie McGrady, MP for South Down, who has long campaigned for Sellafield closure said:
''The revelation that the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield is to close down by 2010 is great news and a welcome development. "It represents a major step towards the decommissioning of the Sellafield plant. "For British Nuclear Fuels Ltd and the British Government to write off the £1.8 billion Thorp works - a nuclear facility which was just opened nine years ago - is a total admission that the arguments used against the commissioning and opening of the plant on health, environmental and economic grounds were right and justified all along. "The closure of the Thorp plant should lead to a substantial reduction in the discharge of toxic waste into the Irish Sea. It should also prevent the further growth of the quantity of land-stored highly radioactive waste.''

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