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Nuclear waste cargo ship arrives in Japan
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The programme of returning solid highly active waste (HAW) from the UK to Japan reached another successful milestone today with the arrival of the purpose-built vessel, Pacific Grebe, carrying the transport of the second consignment of HAW from Sellafield.
The vessel arrived on Thursday, 15th September at its destination port and discharged its cargo of containing 76 canisters of HAW in three transport flasks.
Pacific Grebe, which was on its maiden operational voyage, departed Barrow-in-Furness on August 3rd 2011 bound for Japan via the Panama Canal. The vessel is owned by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd (PNTL), a subsidiary of International Nuclear Services (INS).
Matt Fox, head of marine operations at INS, said: “This important step in the decade-long programme of returning waste to Japan has been completed safely and securely. It maintains our world-class safety record, as well as our position as the world’s leading transporter of nuclear material, something which is a credit to the ships and the team that operates them.”
Will Watson, Sellafield Ltd’s programme manager for Vitrified Residue Returns, said: “The programme of returns reduces the amount of foreign owned waste in the UK, fulfils government policy and also contractual commitments on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
“It’s the latest milestone in Sellafield Ltd’s mission to make the site cleaner, safer and more productive. We are already planning for future returns as the repatriation of all foreign-owned highly active waste from Sellafield continues.”
The waste arises from the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel at Sellafield for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Japanese customers. HAW is therefore being returned to customers in accordance with contractual obligations and UK government policy. Current UK policy states that waste arising from contracts for reprocessing signed with overseas customers since 1976 is to be returned to the customer of origin.
The transport flasks in which the HAW is contained are extremely robust and are designed, tested and modelled to exceed the very robust standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency. They weigh approximately 130 tonnes when loaded, about 90% of which is dedicated to ensuring safety, with the remainder being waste.
Brian Hough from NDA’s team at Sellafield added: “The latest success in the VRR programme is due to close team working between all parts of the NDA estate. Sellafield Ltd, our own team and INS have combined with Direct Rail Services and PNTL to bring together their individual expertise to successfully carry out two transportations from Sellafield to Japan.”
