Historic nuclear fuel retrievals restarts at Sellafield 15 July 2014

The task of emptying canned fuel from the original Windscale fuel storage pond at Sellafield has restarted, following two years of work to refurbish a facility that repackages canned fuel into modern containers.

The Pile Fuel Storage Pond (PFSP) was the first nuclear fuel storage pond constructed at Sellafield, back in the 1940s, and remains the largest open air nuclear storage pond in the world.

It is currently being decommissioned and part of this work involves emptying the pond of its nuclear fuel, explains Dorothy Gradden, head of PFSP.

"The PFSP is well past retirement age and we're fully committed to removing all the nuclear fuel that has been stored there for decades," states Gradden.

"The pond poses one of the most challenging decommissioning projects on the Sellafield site," she continues.

"Almost 1,000 different waste forms have been identified and this canned fuel represents the most significant hazard in the pond. It is therefore the highest priority to remove."

The National Nuclear Laboratory's (NNL) Windscale Laboratory has the job of opening up the old fuel cans in a controlled environment to examine the fuel condition and then repackage it for the site's more modern fuel storage ponds.

"In 2012, we accelerated the retrieval of the first 16 cans of fuel to allow us to prove our retrieval techniques and underpin the treatment route," says Gradden.

"While this work was successful, we had to pause the retrieval programme while a scheduled upgrade of the Windscale Laboratory was carried out.

"This is now complete and we are very pleased to be able to start moving canned fuel from the pond and reducing the hazard associated with the facility."

Project manager Andy Williams says a 12-month programme has now started to transfer the 32 flasks of canned fuel from the pond to the NNL Laboratory and onward into the care of the Thorp programme.

"Underpinning this transfer has required a very close working partnership between all of the parties and has exemplified the drive for accelerated hazard reduction highlighted in the company mission," states Williams.

"This flask movement marks the successful conclusion of a substantial programme of work which will help meet the safer sooner objective for the PFSP."

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
National Nuclear Laboratory
Sellafield Ltd

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