Underperforming nuclear plant's future in jeopardy

A British nuclear plant recently constructed to make plutonium fuel for power reactors in Japan and Europe has been plagued with so many breakdowns that it may have to be shut down.
A technical review for the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) reveals that the plant at Sellafield in Cumbria has suffered 37,000 minor and 100 major equipment failures in a year. These have prevented production for about 70% of the time.
The state-owned company, British Nuclear Group, has mounted an operation to save the plant but this may not succeed, warns the review by consultants Arthur D Little. "Looked at pessimistically," it concludes, "the improvement plans will fail to live up to expectation leading eventually to an irrevocable collapse in the business case and closure."
The plant is designed to recycle the plutonium extracted from spent reactor fuel at Sellafield by combining it with uranium to make mixed oxide fuel, known as MOX. In the wake of fierce controversy over a data falsification scandal at a pilot facility, it was given the go-ahead by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2001.
Production bottleneck
The aim was to make 26 tonnes of foreign plutonium stockpiled at Sellafield into 520 tonnes of MOX fuel, and then send it back to its owners in Japan, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The nuclear industry also hoped that the plant would pave the way for the remaining 77 tonnes of British plutonium at Sellafield to be burnt in a new generation of British reactors.
But the plant has repeatedly failed to live up to expectations. In 2001 its builders, the British Nuclear Group's parent company, BNFL, predicted it would produce 72 tonnes of MOX fuel a year. Last year, according to the NDA, it made just under 3 tonnes.
A version of Arthur D Little's latest review, heavily censored for commercial reasons, was made available by the NDA this week. It pins the blame for the plant's poor performance on "bottlenecks" in the production process caused by the huge number of equipment failures.
"The ability to deal with failures is hampered by engineering drawings and documented plant settings that do not always match the reality," the review says. New parts did not fit, and devices put in to fix a problem during commissioning fell out during maintenance.
Non-existent facilities
The NDA has decided that keeping the "fragile" plant going is preferable to "immediate closure", but its longer term future is highly uncertain. One expert consultant, Ian Jackson, argues that shutting the plant down and switching production to more reliable MOX plants in France or Belgium could save the British taxpayer £2 billion.
The environmental group Greenpeace is calling for the plant to be closed down now. "Plutonium should be deemed a waste and not seen as a fuel for reactors which don't exist," says anti-nuclear campaigner, Jean McSorley.
The British Nuclear Group, however, takes comfort from the NDA's decision to keep the plant running. "The economic case for the plant remains robust," insists a company spokesman. "We will continue to work with both the UK government and the NDA in their ongoing reviews, which are expected to be complete by mid 2007."