AGR spent fuel storage - a Scottish perspective

Reprocessing is responsible for a large fraction of the cost of generating a unit of electricity using nuclear power. In the United Kingdom, spent fuel from Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGRs) will be reprocessed at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) being constructed at Sellafield. Scottish Nuclear, now responsible for spent fuel storage from both the Hunterston and Torness Reactors, will use THORP but is also planning to reduce cost by using a dry fuel store on the power station sites where irradiation occurred, followed, after about fifty years, by direct disposal in deep underground repositories. Dry Store facilities are being constructed on both sites. If it becomes economic to operate fast reactors at some later date, the separation of plutonium for their fuel can be undertaken then as appropriate. (UK)