The milestone has been achieved after the final skip of metal fuel from the pile fuel storage pond has been lifted by the decommissioning teams through a remote-controlled process.
With the removal of the bulk stocks of nuclear fuel, the team has reduced radioactivity levels at the 68-year-old spent fuel pond by 70%, thus reducing the potential risk to environment.
The removed fuel will now be held in a far safer environment at a modern storage building at Sellafield.
The work is a part of Sellafield’s 100-year mission to clean up the nuclear site.
Sellafield managing director Paul Foster said: "Removing decades-old corroded fuel from an aging facility and placing into modern containment makes Sellafield, and the whole of the UK, a far safer place.
"The enormity of the challenge cannot be underestimated – the pond was built with no design for how its contents would be removed.
"We have had to retro-fit an export process and then safely execute it in one of the most challenging environments imaginable."
Spent fuel rods were cooled in the pond after they had been burned in the old Windscale Pile reactors to create weapons material.
Recently, the UK Government approved the development of power line project for the planned $25.5bn Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset.
The nuclear project, which will be the country’s first new nuclear plant in more than 20 years, is planned to be commissioned in 2025.
Image: Workers removed the entire bulk nuclear fuel stocks from the pile fuel storage pond at the Sellafield site in UK. Photo: courtesy of Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
