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.

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.