Environmental impact of the United Kingdom nuclear fuel reprocessing industry

The nuclear industry has the best safety record of any fuel industry in terms of the health and longevity of its workforce. It is also among the least polluting of all the major energy sources. However, discharges of radioactive wastes do arise as a result of the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels although there are discharge limits set by the government agencies who issue the discharge authorizations. Most spent fuel is reprocessed at the BNFL Sellafield site. All the high- and intermediate-level wastes are stored there and low-level waste is disposed of at the Drigg site nearby. In order to ensure control of the discharges a programme of environmental monitoring is carried out and environmental impact compared with the radiation doses. In particular, doses to identified critical groups in the area from marine, terrestrial and atmospheric discharges are shown, and collective dose estimates made. A comparison of risk assessment for a number of causes is presented - this shows the impact of environmental discharges from Sellafield is quite low. (UK)