Plutonium plant to bring 'thousands of jobs'

A multibillion-pound plant to process plutonium is expected to bring thousands of skilled jobs in the coming decades, the government has said.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said the Sellafield facility in Cumbria would turn the radioactive waste into a more stable form that could be disposed of.

It would then be placed in an underground structure called a geological disposal facility (GDF), which is yet to be built.

The government said work on the processing plant was likely to start towards the end of the decade.

It announced its plan to deal with "civil separated plutonium" earlier.

The substance, which "will remain radioactive and toxic for a considerable period of time", is a waste product from reprocessing used nuclear fuel, the NDA says.

It is currently stored as a powder at the Sellafield nuclear site, but needs to be converted into a more stable form to be disposed of in a GDF, according to officials.

The proposed new infrastructure "is expected to support thousands of skilled jobs during the multi-decade design, construction and operational period," Energy Minister Michael Shanks said.

The NDA said new interim storage facilities would be needed as well as the processing plant.

The authority will now develop the scheme further and choose a preferred technology for converting the plutonium.

The Labour MP Josh MacAlister, whose Whitehaven and Workington constituency includes Sellafield, said it would be the "largest project ever" at the site.

He added it did "not end our ambition" to build a new nuclear power station on nearby land at Moorside.

The government is working to identify a suitable site to build a GDF, which is not expected to start receiving waste until the 2050s.

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