It is for the individual countries and utilities concerned to determine their degree of use of the option. The important point is that the industry has provided flexibility and achieved a means of reducing high level waste quantities while at the same time extracting more energy from finite resources. With the complex technologies required for successfully managing spent nuclear fuel, the issue is not merely one of appropriate technology but also of appropriate timing. We are dealing here with an integrated series of technologies and there is no need, as some critics have suggested, to have the complete series in place when the first stage begins operation. To do this would deny us the opportunity to refine further the technological options available and would lead to installations standing idle until needed, possibly for several decades after completion of construction.
Flexibility is maintained by building to the appropriate time scale.
The logical consequence of reprocessing is the recycling of separated uranium and plutonium. As mentioned above, both are demonstrated technologies in Europe and available to extend the life of available uranium resources as requirements dictate. Decisions to reprocess and to recycle such materials are driven by different imperatives in different countries. At the moment there is little pressure for prompt reprocessing. The first large scale MOX plant, Melox in France, started production in February 1995 and construction of the Sellafield MOX facility in the UK is proceeding at high speed.