ANSTO continues removal of used reactor fuel from Lucas Heights

Press release

November 26, 1999

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, ANSTO, last night continued its program of removing more than 40 years of research reactor spent fuel from its Lucas Heights site.

A shipment of 308 used fuel elements of United Kingdom origin was loaded at Port Borany onto a specially fitted vessel for transportation to the La Hague, France, reprocessing plant of Compagnie Générale des Matières Nucléaires, COGEMA.

It was, the fourth shipment of spent fuel from Lucas Heights and the second since September 1997, when the Commonwealth Government announced it would provide funding to ANSTO to ship overseas its inventory of spent fuel.

The shipments made previously were :

• 1963 : 150 spent fuel elements to Dounreay, Scotland.
• April 1996 : 114 spent fuel elements, also to Dounreay, Scotland.
• May 1998 : 240 fuel elements of United States origin to the US Department of Energy