UK to Close Sellafield Mixed Plutonium-Uranium Fuel Plant

The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said it will lock the Sellafield Mixed Oxide Plant bordering the Irish Sea on England's west coast the plant be built to to reprocess the civilian plutonium at Sellafield, the major stockpile in the world, by mixing it with uranium to make MOX fuel used for nuclear power plants.

Japan was Sellafield's biggest customer but MOX orders beginning Japanese utilities have stopped behind the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami so as to struck Japan on March 11, Since September 2010, one of the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi had be fueled by six percent MOX fuel, rather than low enriched uranium used in the other reactors.

Announcing the closure Wednesday, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said "in order to ensure that the UK taxpayer do not carry a future financial burden from SMP that the only reasonable course of action is to lock SMP at the earliest practical opportunity" the Sellafield MOX plant has so far charge British taxpayers £1.34 billion.