Reprocessing

Magnox Reprocessing Plant, at the Sellafield site, closed on 17 July 2022; this coincided with the conclusion of the UK’s Magnox Operating Plan (MOP) – a six-decade plan for the operation and fuel cycle of the country’s first generation Magnox reactor fleet. Between 1964 and 2022, the plant successfully reprocessed the vast majority of spent Magnox fuel from the UK’s reactor fleet. The final two Magnox reactors to be defueled were Wylfa and Calder Hall.

ThORP (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant), also at Sellafield, was commissioned in 1994 and closed in 2018. The facility reprocessed uranium dioxide fuel (UO₂) from the UK’s Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs), in addition to UO₂ and Mixed Oxide (MOx) fuel from international customers (predominantly Japan). Since 2018, spent AGR fuel is interim stored in ThORP Receipt & Storage (TR&S) at the Sellafield site, pending final disposal in a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). This storage does not eliminate the option to reprocess this fuel in the future, should the political and economic climate change.