MOX nuclear plant to start with opening of radioactive plutonium

Cracking open a keg of highly toxic plutonium provides an unusual curtain raiser this morning for the start of nuclear fuel manufacture at the MOX plant at Sellafield.

Once charged with plutonium, the MOX facility will become highly radioactive for at least 1,000 generations.

MOX is the latest major facility to come on stream at Sellafield since the commissioning of the controversial THORP plant in 1994.

Repeated efforts by the Government and by environmental groups failed to prevent the opening today of the £663m (€840m) MOX unit.

Sellafield's operator, BNFL confirmed yesterday that it plans to commission the plant by introducing plutonium into the facility. It remained unsure however whether the fateful action would be taken today as planned or tomorrow.

It was "not a fixed time scale", a company spokesman said yesterday.

MOX, short for mixed oxide, will blend plutonium dioxide and uranium dioxide powder and bake it into ceramic-like fuel pellets for use in nuclear reactors. Tests have been underway at the plant for years while BNFL awaited final authorisation to open from the UK government.

There was considerable controversy along the way including a scandal in the late 1990s involving falsified fuel pellet records. Pellets are made to very exacting standards and to a very precise size. Validating these standards is time consuming and tedious, leading staff to take short-cuts that were later noted by the Japanese plant that received them. The radioactive raw materials for MOX fuel are stored on site at Sellafield, including an estimated 70 tonnes of plutonium powder. This is one of the most dangerous and persistent radioactive substances known and remains a biological hazard for tens of thousands of years.

It has always been a problem to store, but now even more so given fears that it could become the target of a terrorist attack in the days since September 11th.

Today's commissioning, if it goes ahead as scheduled, will represent "an historic but black day for Ireland" according to Green TD, Mr John Gormley.

He travelled to Cumbria yesterday with about 125 protesters including the Fine Gael senator, Mr Fergus O'Dowd, and members of the Union of Students of Ireland.

The group plans to use "non-violent direct action" according to Mr Gormley, in an effort to blockade the plant.