Delivering the safe clean-up and demolition of the UK's former centre of fast reactor research on behalf of the Nuclear Decomissioning Authority

Nuclear Fuel

Dounreay’s purpose was to research and develop more efficient ways to generate electricity from uranium and plutonium

A variety of fuel types was tested in reactors and examined over a 40-year period. The used fuel was recycled in chemical plants and the recovered uranium and plutonium turned into new fuel elements.

The knowledge gained from this work about the properties of uranium and plutonium made Dounreay a world-leader in the development of nuclear energy for electricity production.

By 1994, when the UK Government decided Dounreay had served its purpose, the site had built up a stock of more than 100 tonnes of uranium and plutonium, much of it in a variety of specialist forms.

Some of this uranium and plutonium exists in the form of “spent fuel”. These are elements that have been irradiated in a reactor but not reprocessed to separate the fuel from the waste. Other fuel is unirradiated.

Today, most of this stock of fuel belongs to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and is a national asset. A small amount belongs to other countries.

Managing the fuel legacy safely and securely on behalf of the NDA is an important part of the site closure programme.

The strategy for the NDA fuel has been to package it in a way that does not foreclose options for its re-use, now or at a later date.

It involves the construction of storage facilities at Dounreay for fuel that is not removed before the "interim end date", when all the redundant facilities will have been cleared from the site.

In September 2011, DSRL published an information leaflet that seeks to explain what will happen to the different materials at the site - Radioactive Materials at Dounreay.

Click here for more information about the nuclear fuel cycle

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Image: Uranium in powder form after it has been separated from spent fuel

Uranium in powder form after it has been separated from spent fuel

Image: Archive image of staff getting spent fuel from the prototype fast reactor ready for reprocessing

Archive image of staff getting spent fuel from the prototype fast reactor ready for reprocessing

Image: Fuel elements being manfactured at Dounreay

Fuel elements being manfactured at Dounreay

Image: Dounreay’s fuel plants included facilities where uranium was recovered from the reprocessing of spent fuel

Dounreay's fuel plants included facilities where uranium was recovered from the reprocessing of spent fuel