A previously discounted proposal to use a fast reactor to deal with the United Kingdom’s plutonium stockpile continues to gain credibility.
The Independent reported Tuesday that the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has greenlighted a feasibility study with GE-Hitachi on using its Prism small modular reactor design. The plant could be built in ten years, a GEH executive said, and would operate at no upfront cost, instead billing the British government based on the amount of plutonium burned.
After losing a key customer in Japan in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the UK closed the MOX production plant helping to dispose of the country’s 102-tonne plutonium stockpile. The country’s original fast-reactor program at Dounreay ended in the 1990s, with a contract announced this week for its decommissioning. NDA had taken building a new fast reactor off the table in favor of building a second MOX plant, but it indicated a willingness to reconsider after GEH suggested its technology was at a further stage in development than originally thought.