Plans by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to make plutonium fuel for power
stations are in disarray. A major customer, the Japanese company Kansai
Electric, has rejected the fuel because of doubts over its quality. The UK
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate says that checks on the diameter of the
pellets in two BNFL fuel assemblies due to be used in Japan were “suspect”. The
incident comes at a bad time for BNFL, which is still waiting for permission to
open a new plant making mixed plutonium and uranium oxide fuel.
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