The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant does not carry out the type of activity undertaken at the Japanese plant where the explosion occurred. Another UK plant operated by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, at Springfields, near Preston, does, however, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
Both Preston and the Tokaimura plant in eastern Japan use uranium ores which are processed to produce fuels for the nuclear power industry. The process isknown as "fuel conversion", stated Mr Alan Hughes of BNFL. "We don't undertake fuel conversion activities at Sellafield. We do fuel conversion at Springfields."
The Preston plant uses a process that "enriches" the fuel by between two and three per cent - a level required by the power plants. BNFL understands that the enrichment level at the plant where the explosion occurred was at 19 to 20 per cent.
"The only reason to enrich it to that level is for use in a test reactor. This wasn't a run of the mill operation, it was a specialised operation," Mr Hughes said.
Sellafield does not convert uranium but does produce another type of nuclear fuel, MOX, which is a blend of uranium and plutonium. The latter comes from the reprocessing done at Sellafield, where plutonium is extracted from spent nuclear reactor fuel.
A nuclear reaction similar to that which occurred at Tokaimura could not happen at Sellalfield or Preston, Mr Hughes said. "No. We are only operating on sketchy details and are only making assumptions on what happened [in Japan] but we use a different conversion process."