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Plutonium: Exports

Volume 496: debated on Wednesday 9 September 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what quantities of safeguarded plutonium have been exported since July 2008; and for what purpose. (287543)

There have been two exports of material containing small amounts of safeguarded plutonium since July 2008. Both were delivered to consignees in Sweden. The first shipment, in April 2009, was Intermediate Level Waste containing approximately 5g of plutonium. The waste was returned to Sweden as part of contracted work to reprocess spent nuclear fuel at Sellafield from Sweden’s R1 research reactor. The second shipment, in June 2009, was a container of 46 irradiated Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) fuel pins containing less than 400 g of plutonium. This material will be returned to the UK following analytical examination.