Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment has been made of whether encapsulating the plutonium inventory for immobilisation would limit recovery of americium-241 for medical and space-power applications.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Department and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority have supported the UK National Nuclear Laboratory’s work to extract americium from the UK’s civil separated plutonium inventory at Sellafield for the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) ENDURE Programme.

The department recognises the potential importance of americium for advanced technologies, including space power systems. Whilst no decisions have been taken, government continue to explore opportunities for collaboration with industry.

Immobilisation will be a long-term programme with a number of decades until all of the UK’s civil separated plutonium is put beyond reach.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the Written Statement of 24 January 2025 on the Plutonium Disposition Strategy, what consideration was given in the decision to rapid developments in metallic fast-reactor fuel and uranium-transuranic fuel technologies that could utilise UK plutonium.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Department and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) considered both immobilisation and re-use options. There are no existing or planned fast reactor projects in the UK that could utilise the plutonium. All current and planned UK reactors use uranium fuel.

Immobilisation can be delivered sooner and with greater certainty than re-use in fast reactors, due in part to removing reliance on delivery of a new reactor programme.

Indefinite storage of plutonium is not an acceptable solution due to the high cost of management and the enduring safety and security burden.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the Written Statement of 24 January 2025 on the Plutonium Disposition Strategy, what the results were of the plutonium fuel pellet manufacturing trials undertaken with Orano at its demonstration facility in France using UK-produced plutonium, which the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority stated in March 2019 were scheduled for completion in 2020.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The trials completed in 2020 demonstrated that Orano's MIMAS process for manufacturing LWR MOX fuel could be applied to some UK plutonium.

It was assessed that immobilisation will put the plutonium beyond reach sooner and with greater confidence than re-use.

Not all of the plutonium would be suitable for re-use in fuel, so an immobilisation programme would always be required for part of the inventory.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the Written Statement of 24 January 2025 on the Plutonium Disposition Strategy, what work was undertaken to investigate the possibility of reuse as CANMOX and what the result of this work was.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Department and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) considered reuse as CANMOX as part of their assessment of options for plutonium disposition. This work concluded that CANMOX was technically viable but was less mature than other options and would require further development before it could be deployed at industrial scale.

It was found that immobilisation would put the plutonium beyond reach sooner and with greater confidence than re-use.

Not all of the plutonium would be suitable for re-use in fuel, so an immobilisation programme would always be required for part of the inventory.

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Ms Abena Oppong-Asare (Chair); Lewis Cocking; Andrew Cooper; Chris Curtis