Sellafield completes waste storage facility

A new Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) storage facility has been completed at Sellafield that will be used to store materials arising from ongoing decommissioning work at the UK’s largest nuclear site. The Encapsulated Product Store 3 (EPS3) is the latest addition to the suite of facilities designed to store ILW in above ground storage buildings on the site.

It consists of more than 32,000 cubic metres (1.2 million cubic feet) of concrete and 7,000 tones of steel reeinforcement, and represents the very latest generation in nuclear waste storage design and construction with a capacity of more than 29,000 storage drums.

Pete Lutwyche, Sellafield programme director for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), said: “The completion of EPS 3 marks a major milestone in the decommissioning of Sellafield. This facility is a key piece in the jigsaw of projects we need to clean-up the most hazardous areas of the site - the NDA’s number one priority task.

“Once opened, the building will provide world-class, modern storage of waste for many years to come, pending its ultimate transfer to the safest and most secure method of dealing with this material – disposal in a deep geological facility.

“This is one of a number of achievements this year at Sellafield, including the completion of the Sludge Packaging Plant and the restarting of fuel removal from the Pile Fuel Storage Pond, and I hope to see this momentum continuing across the decommissioning programme.”