The Fuel Handling Plant is a critical part of the UK's nuclear infrastructure. It safely receives, stores, and processes nuclear fuel from EDF's reactor fleet on the Sellafield site.
The Fuel Handling Plant (FHP) plays a vital role in keeping homes and businesses across the UK powered. By safely receiving, storing and processing nuclear fuel from the fleet of reactors operated by EDF, the facility makes sure those reactors can keep running, generating low carbon electricity and supporting national energy security.
It is a key part of the country's nuclear infrastructure, and has supported nuclear energy generation in the UK for 4 decades, and it continues to do so today.
What is the Fuel Handling Plant
The Fuel Handling Plant (FHP) was built in the late 1970s and officially opened in 1985. It was the first facility at Sellafield to have a roof over its fuel ponds, helping protect the pond and it's contents from the coastal environment and improving the way fuel is stored.
Construction of FHP
The building is split into 4 main areas:
- the inlets, where fuel flasks arrive and are sent back out after processing
- the pond hall, where fuel is cooled and stored safely underwater
- the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) dismantler, where fuel from EDF reactors is broken down and consolidated
- the Magnox decanner cells, which supported the Magnox reactor fleet by preparing fuel for reprocessing
The main pond hall
Together, these areas allow us to safely manage nuclear fuel, support energy generation, and reduce hazards across the Sellafield site.
How does the Fuel Handling Plant work?
AGR fuel arrives and is stored in the pond for 180 days to allow short-lived isotopes to decay. Each fuel element contains 36 fuel pins held in a stainless-steel grid, tube and brace assembly all encased in a graphite sleeve.
The fuel pins in their stainless-steel grid
Once cooled, the fuel is transferred to the dismantler cell. The elements are lifted from their water filled container and placed onto a rotating bench. Each pin contains 64 enriched uranium pellets. The pins are removed one by one and roll down into a hopper until there are 108 pins, which is 3 elements' worth. The pins are then packed into a slotted can.
This approach was developed to support reprocessing in the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) on the Sellafield site, where full cans were chopped and dissolved in nitric acid.
Even though reprocessing ended in 2018, the dismantling process remains the same as slotted cans reduce the space needed to store fuel.
The dismantler cell
Full cans are placed into a container and transferred to the Thorp Receipt and Storage Pond, on the Sellafield site where they will remain until a geological disposal facility becomes available.
After the pins are removed, the graphite sleeve is cracked off and crushed into smaller pieces and placed into a waste drum.
The remaining stainless-steel grid, tube and brace assembly is compacted and placed into a waste drum. These drums are transferred by tunnel to the waste store on the Sellafield site.
Both types are routinely exported to the encapsulated product stores for safe storage until a geological disposal facility becomes available.
Supporting the Magnox reactors
The Fuel Handling Plant played a central role in supporting the UK fleet of Magnox reactors. Fuel was received, stored and decanned in purpose-built cells, which helped keep the reactors running and enabled reprocessing of spent fuel.
Magnox fuel consists of a uranium metal bar clad in a magnesium alloy casing. In the decanner cells, the rods were fed through a slitter head which sliced off the cladding, known as swarf.
The swarf was sent to the Magnox Encapsulation Plant, on the Sellafield site where it was grouted and stored. The uranium metal bar was sent to the Magnox Reprocessing Plant.
The Magnox Encapsulation Plant
This work continued until Magnox reprocessing was completed in 2022. Around 200 tonnes of Magnox fuel remain in the pond hall, stored in skips and routinely monitored to ensure safe storage.
Supporting other parts of the Sellafield site
The Fuel Handling Plant has always been an adaptable facility, evolving from the inside out.
Below are just a few examples of how it's changed and innovated to support the wider mission at Sellafield.
- As the pond water in the Fuel Handling Plant is relatively clean, it's sent to the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond, a legacy facility we are now cleaning-up. This helps reduce the activity level in that pond. The water is then sent to the The Sellafield Site Ion Exchange Effluent Plant (SIXEP) for treatment and safe discharge.
- Fuel bearing skips from the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond are accepted by FHP allowing us to clean up one of our original legacy facilities.
- The facility has been granted permission to triple stack skips in the pond, safely increasing storage capacity by about one third giving us extra capacity to support power generation in the UK and risk reduction on the Sellafield site.
- Work is under way to assess the oldest graphite waste drums - as they have been in store for decades radioactive decay means that some of them may now be able to be reclassified as low level waste.
