Fast Reactor Policy (Hansard, 29 November 1982)

§ Mr. Lawson

The Government have now completed their review of the fast reactor.

The fast reactor is of major strategic significance for the United Kingdom's and the world's future energy supplies. It is 50 times as efficient a user of uranium as thermal reactors, such as the advanced gas-cooled reactor and pressurised water reactor, and can create out of the spent fuel and depleted uranium which has so far ariser from our thermal programme fuel equivalent to our economocally recoverable coal reserves.

The United Kingdom is among the world's leaders in the development of this technology. Through the successful programme of research and development undertaken by the Atomic Energy Authority, which centres on the operation of the prototype fast reactor and associated fuel cycle at Dounreay, we have demonstrated the feasibility and potential of this technology. We have also collaborated with other major countries who have programmes in this field.

We are in an excellent position to carry the programme forward and to prepare for the introduction of commercial fast reactors when these are needed to augment our thermal reactor programme.

The Government have therefore decided to continue with a substantial development programme for the fast reactor based on Dounreay, and I have asked the chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority, Sir Peter Hirsch, in consultation with the generating boards, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd and the National Nuclear Corporation to draw up a future development programme which makes the best use of our resources and experience.

In common with most other leading fast reactor nations, we now believe that the series ordering phase will begin in the earlier part of the next century, and thus on a longer timescale than we have previously envisaged. We shall therefore have more time in which to develop further the technology and before undertaking the construction of a first full scale reactor in the United Kingdom: and the development programme will be geared to this timescale.

The Government and the Atomic Energy Authority have been having exploratory discussions with other countries to establish whether a satisfactory basis for international co-operation can be worked out. The Government wish to see these discussions continue, and have asked the Atomic Energy Authority, in preparing advice about the future programme, to take account of the potential for collaborating with other countries as a means of securing the maximum benefits from this vital development programme.