British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL)

CEO: Mike Parker
Headquarters: Daresbury, England
Website: http://www.bnfl.com/

Overview

BNFL was formed in 1971 as a spin off of the UK Atomic Energy Authority which is a governmental agency. The UK government is a 100% shareholder of BNFL. The corporation operates in 15 countries and employs more than 23,000 people. In 1998 BNFL merged with Magnox Electric Company and in 1999 purchased the nuclear business of Westinghouse Electric Company.

Nearly 50% of the nuclear power plants in operation worldwide and nearly 60% in the United States are based on Westinghouse technology, which is owned by BNFL. BNFL directly contributes to the nuclear fuel chain, with projects involving uranium, nuclear energy, weapons and waste.

BNFL Business

UK Government: BNFL, Lockheed Martin, and SERCO are responsible for the management of the UK's nuclear weapons. The contract with the Ministry of Defense was signed on December 1, 1999.

Sellafield (UK) : Known as the world's nuclear dustbin, Sellafield is where the Windscale Piles are located, and where the first major nuclear reactors were built in the UK. Their main purpose was to produce plutonium for Britain's nuclear weapons program. The BNFL web-site boasts that radioactive discharge from Sellafield is now less than 1% of peak levels in the 1970s.

Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX): The recycling plants at La Hague and Sellafield (UK) also convert the reusable uranium and plutonium into Mixed Oxide (MOX). BNFL operates the largest international transport network of nuclear materials including Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) on ships, trains and motorized vehicles. The first transport of MOX fuel from Europe to Japan was completed successfully in 1999.

Reprocessing Fuel: Greenpeace, in the interest of the environment, public health and safety and nuclear non-proliferation has established British Nuclear Fuels where the leaked documents and a background briefing on BNFL's reprocessing crisis can be found.

The dirt BNFL makes

BNFL buys, manufactures and manages the processing of uranium into fuel.

BNFL provides reprocessing of nuclear fuel and manages spent fuel and waste.

BNFL builds and services nuclear reactors, both pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors.

BNFLs' subsidiary Pacific Nuclear Transport has 5 ships making over 150 voyages annually from Japan to Sellafield (located in the UK), and to the Comegas Le Hague plant (located in France).

BNFL decommissions nuclear power plants, approximately 50 since 1988. One research reactor site has since had its license removed and is now used for offices.

BFNL Subsidiaries

BNFL Inc.: Established in 1990, BNFL Inc. is a full service nuclear waste management company, decommissioning, engineering, and handling nuclear materials.
It handles the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford, Idaho, Oak Ridge, Rocky Flats, and Savannah River Sites. BNFL Inc. has its headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia and offices in Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and Washington, DC.

BNFL Instruments: BNFL Instruments is one of the world's leading providers of instrumentation and services for the measurement and characterization of radioactive materials.

BNFL, SA: It is based in France and was set up in 1996 to manage the way nuclear materials are transported on mainland European rail network for BNFL . BNFL SA also manages a marine terminal in Dunkirk, France. The BNFL ship, European Shearwater, transports the used fuel from Dunkirk to the Barrow marine terminal near Sellafield, UK.

Direct Rail Services Limited: It is operating on a commercial basis since 1996 as a BNFL group company. Direct Rail Services Limited is completely owned by BNFL and is based in North West England. Its business is focused principally on the transport of nuclear material from power stations to the reprocessing facility at Sellafield in Cumbria.
Rail transport fact sheet
Nuclear Waste Trains Investigation

International Nuclear Fuels Limited (INFL): INFL is completely owned by BNFL and its purpose is to develop international business through collaboration.

Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL): PNTL was set up in 1975 as a subsidiary company of BNFL. It has shareholders from the UK, Japan and France. PNTL transports nuclear materials by sea between Japan and Europe. PNTL has five purpose-built ships. The five ships, along with their own European Shearwater, are all managed by BNFL. By 2010 up to 20 more shipments between Europe and Japan will be undertaken for the 16 to 18 Japanese reactors loaded with MOX. On December 2000, the largest ever nuclear waste shipment, a total of 192 blocks of nuclear waste, left the French port of Cherbourg bound for Japan via Cape Horn in on a ship owned by Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL). Another plutonium shipment to Japan aboard a PNTL boat occurred on July 19 1999.

Uranium Assets Management (UAM) Company Limited: UAM provides uranium contract management services including the uranic procurement on behalf of BNFL's Magnox Generation Group.

Westinghouse Electric Company: In 1999 BNFL acquired the commercial nuclear power businesses of CBS, now known as the Westinghouse Electric Company. Westinghouse Electric Company is one of the four major business groups of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). Nearly 50% percent of the nuclear power plants in operation worldwide, and nearly 60% in the United States, are based on Westinghouse technology. It provides fuel, services, technology, plant design and equipment to utility and industrial customers in the worldwide commercial nuclear electric power industry.

Bechtel National Inc: Since 1994, Bechtel has been involved in the massive cleanup of nuclear materials at the U.S government's Hanford Site (near Richland, Washington). In December 2000, the U.S. Department of Energy rewarded Bechtel's good work with more work at Hanford, awarding Bechtel National the task of building facilities for vitrifying millions of liters of liquid radioactive waste for safe storage.

2000 was a very dirty year for BNFL
On 19 January 2000, Kansai Electric Power, Japan's second-largest power company, banned BNFL from bidding for contracts to supply plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel because of falsified quality control records. Three days later, BNFL's nuclear fuel manufacturing plant at Sellafield, in west Cumbria, was closed for weeks while managers fought to avoid the loss of vital quality assurance accreditation.

A spokesman for Jürgen Trittin, the German Green party environment minister, said it had become apparent that the problems at Sellafield were not just a one-off but reflected a general neglect of stipulated tests and "inherent deficiencies in the organization of BNFL".

On 18 February 2000, the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the industry safety watchdog, accused BNFL of "systematic management failures" and of lacking an adequate safety management system. The government gave BNFL two months to suggest improvements to management and safety processes at its Sellafield site or face the possibility of some operations being shut down. Later that month, senior and middle managers departed.

On 3 March 2000, Denmark threatened political action to force Britain to halt radioactive discharges into the North Sea from the Sellafield plant. The Danish Environment Ministry said it might put forward a legally-binding commitment to end radioactive discharges at a meeting of north-east Atlantic countries in Copenhagen in June 2000. Later that month, Germany joined Japan in banning shipments of MOX fuel from the company and Bill Richardson, the US Energy Secretary ordered immediate top to bottom review of work being performed by BNFL for the US government.

BNFLs' "Humanitarian" Work
BNFL has a program of community investment and involvement, covering economic regeneration, education, academia, charitable giving and sponsorship. The program is mainly aimed at the communities surrounding its operating sites. The program supports local organizations/charities.

BNFL also sponsors university departments through funding centers of excellence at locations such as Manchester University on Radiochemicals; recognizing the need to preserve this scientific expertise. BNFL has invested over £2 million over five years on this subject matter. BNFL is also funding £2 million for research concerning particle technology at Leeds University.

This research and report was compiled by Mikele Aboitiz, Sheri Gibbings and Felicity Hill of Reaching Critical Will.

For More Profiles:

See BNFL's PDF Dirty Dozen profile.

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BAE Systems
Bechtel Corporation
Boeing
General Dynamics
IBM
Lockheed Martin
Mitsubishi
Northrop Grumman
Raytheon
Siemens
University of California

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