West Cumbria Sites Stakeholder Group

The Sellafield site comprises a range of nuclear facilities, including redundant facilities associated with defence work, facilities associated with the Magnox reprocessing programme, the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, the Sellafield Mox plant, a range of waste treatment plants and the Calder Hall power station, which ceased operations in 2003.

Decommissioning

At Sellafield work is underway to decommission the historical Magnox/Pile Fuel Storage Ponds, Solid Nuclear Waste Silos, Nuclear Reactors, Sea Discharge Pipelines, Legacy Reprocessing Plants and Contaminated Lands. There are also a number of new build projects planned or underway to support the Decommissioning facilities.

Waste management

Low, intermediate and high level nuclear waste is processed and stored at Sellafield. This includes historic legacy materials as well as new wastes arising from the site’s commercial and decommissioning operations.

Reprocessing

The Sellafield site is home to two nuclear fuel reprocessing plants. The first deals with Magnox fuel from Britain’s early nuclear reactors (such as the Calder Hall power station at Sellafield). The second is the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant or Thorp as it is known, deals with fuel from British Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGR) and Light Water Reactor fuel from around the world.