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European plans for a series of commercial fast breeder reactors were
dealt a blow by the British government’s refusal last week to agree a financial
package which would have kept the prototype fast reactor (PFR) at Dounreay
running for another three years.

The European fast reactor programme – led by Britain, France and Germany
– had hoped to carry out important research at the fast reactor research
centre at Dounreay in Scotland, which is operated by AEA Technology. This
would have covered the instrumentation, core layout, fuel design and reliability
of equipment for a future generation of fast breeders. The research would
culminate in the commissioning of the first European fast reactor (EFR)
early next century.

But Tim Eggar, the energy minister, is sticking to the government’s
original decision to end public funding of the PFR in 1994. Britain’s state-owned
nuclear industry had asked the government if it could pay to keep the reactor
operating for a further three years out of its own budget. But constraints
on public spending ruled this out, the minister said. The PFR costs about
£60 million a year to run and generates around £12 million in
sales of electricity. Britain’s fast reactor programme has been running
for nearly 40 years at a total cost of over £4 billion.

Colin Gregory, director of the fast reactor research programme at Dounreay,
says that the EFR will inevitably take longer to construct and cost more
without more time for research at Dounreay. ‘We will have to build in more
conservatism to the design, it will be harder to make the safety arguments
and we won’t be so certain on reliability.’

Reprocessing will continue to deal with the spent fuel taken out of
the reactor. Government funding for this runs out in 1997, but AEA Technology
has commercial contracts, chiefly from overseas research reactors, that
will keep reprocessing going after that.

The closure of the PFR also causes problems for Germany’s nuclear industry.
AEA Technology recently signed a deal to store 200 fuel assemblies from
Germany at Dounreay for three or four years, then convert them for use in
the PFR. The assemblies were built for Germany’s SNR 300 fast reactor at
Kalkar, which was built but never licensed to operate. Now Germany will
have to decide what to do with the fissile material.

The end of the fast reactor programme will also leave the British government
and the nuclear industry with the problem of how to deal with its plutonium
stockpile. The nuclear industry routinely reprocesses spent fuel to recover
plutonium. This was destined for future fast reactors.

By 2000, this stockpile is expected to be 62 tonnes. Some could be reused
in conventional reactors, but most is surplus to requirements. The government’s
review of the nuclear power industry, scheduled for 1994, will have to consider
what to do with Britain’s unwanted plutonium mountain.