Breeder

Britain after the Second World War needed electricity to rebuild the economy.

Fast breeder reactors were the solution to the country's energy crisis. They could produce new fuel as well as generate electricity.

The new fuel came from a "blanket" around the core of the reactor where an otherwise useless type of uranium metal absorbed radiation from the core and "bred" plutonium.

An experimental fast breeder reactor was built at Dounreay in the 1950s.

Its success created optimism about a fleet of fast reactors running on plutonium throughout the UK by the 1970s.

Between 1967 and 1972, thirty tonnes of breeder material was removed from the Dounreay Fast Reactor and reprocessed in England to produce the first new fuel.

A larger, prototype fast reactor opened at Dounreay in 1974.

But the prospects for more fast reactors waned following the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea and no more were built in the UK.

Today, the experimental and prototype versions built at Dounreay are being cleaned out and dismantled.

Decommissioning the experimental reactor will yield some 44 tonnes of breeder material.

There's 11 tonnes that was removed from the reactor when it closed in 1977 and another 33 tonnes still inside the breeder zone of the reactor.

The breeder is in the form of "pucks" - cylindrical bars of solid metal consisting of 99.8 per cent natural uranium and 0.2 per cent plutonium.

Each breeder element consisted of fourteen of these "pucks" laid end to end and wrapped in steel cladding.

The material belongs now to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on behalf of the UK Government.

The UK has no plans to build more fast reactors but the material bred at Dounreay can still be used to make new fuel.

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is packaging up the breeder metal in a way that will allow it to be removed from the site and reprocessed.

The total cost of this operation is in the region of £100 million.

This section of the website provides more information about the work taking place to return the breeder to the nation's nuclear fuel cycle.

In July 2011, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority published a report setting out its preferred option for management of the breeder - its transfer to Sellafield where it can be managed with fuel from the Magnox power stations.

NDA to begin returning fuel to UK stocks - November 2011

Compelling case to move breeder to Sellafield - NDA

VIDEO: The Breeder that Electrified Britain

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Image: Removal of the breeder from the experimental fast reactor is an essential part of its decommissioning

Removal of the breeder from the experimental fast reactor is an essential part of its decommissioning

Image: The top of the reactor where the process cell and retrieval equipment is being installed

The top of the reactor where the process cell and retrieval equipment is being installed

Image: Construction of the facilities where the breeder will be made ready for export

Construction of the facilities where the breeder will be made ready for export

Image: These are the sealed cells where the inner breeder is declad and recanned ready to be packed in transport containers

These are the sealed cells where the inner breeder is declad and recanned ready to be packed in transport containers

Image: A replica breeder element sits in the vice where the real material will be dismantled when removal from the reactor begins in 2013

A replica breeder element sits in the vice where the real material will be dismantled when removal of the outer breeder from the reactor begins in 2013

Image: Some of the inner breeder removed in 1977 positioned in the cutting machine inside the cell

Breeder positioned in the cutting machine inside the cell