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Why Nuclear Reprocessing?

Does Britain really need nuclear power? –    December 14, 2025 by Ian Fairlea beyondnuclearinternational

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..The initial rationale for reprocessing in the 1950s to the 1980s was the Cold War demand for fissile material to make nuclear weapons.

Reprocessing is the name given to the physico-chemical treatment of spent nuclear fuel carried on at Sellafield in Cumbria since the 1950s. This involves the stripping of metal cladding from spent nuclear fuel assemblies, dissolving the inner uranium fuel in boiling concentrated nitric acid, chemically separating out the uranium and plutonium isotopes and storing the remaining dissolved fission products in large storage tanks.

It is a dirty, dangerous, unhealthy, polluting and expensive process which results in workers employed at Sellafield and local people being exposed to high radiation doses.

Terrorism

A major objection to reprocessing is that the plutonium produced has to be carefully guarded in case it is stolen. Four kilos is enough to make a nuclear bomb. Perhaps even more worrying, it does not have to undergo fission to cause havoc: a conventional explosion of a small amount would also cause chaos. A speck of plutonium breathed into the lungs can cause cancer. If plutonium dust were scattered by dynamite, for example, thousands of people could be affected and huge areas might have to be evacuated for decades………….. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/12/14/does-britain-really-need-nuclear-power/

December 17, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | reprocessing