§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to publish information on the civil plutonium inventory. [129968]
§ Mrs. LiddellFigures for the United Kingdom's civil plutonium holdings are published by my Department each year and are placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The most recent were published on 13 June 2000 covering holdings at 31 December 1999.
§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recent assessment(a) his Department, (b) consultants to his Department and (c) non-departmental public bodies responsible to his Department have made of electrometallurgical techniques to process spent nuclear fuel as developed in the (i)United States and (ii) Russia. [129966]
§ Mrs. LiddellDTI has made no assessment of electrometallurgical techniques to process spent nuclear fuels, nor have we commissioned consultants to do so. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, a non-departmental body reporting to DTI, recently considered pyrometallurgical processing (developed in the United States) as a potential technology for the future management of nuclear fuels at its Dounreay site. It concluded that the technology was not a practicable option for dealing with the non-metallic fuels at Dounreay, and that the waste products might not be acceptable in the UK without further treatment.