|
British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was a nuclear energy and fuels company owned by the UK Government. It was a former manufacturer and transporter of nuclear fuel (notably MOX), ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel (mainly at Sellafield), and decommissioned nuclear plants and other similar facilities. Until 2003 its headquarters were based at Risley, near Warrington, England. BNFL's headquarters were then moved to Daresbury Park industrial estate, also near Warrington. On 1 April 2005, BNFL formed a new holding company, and started a rigorous restructuring process which would transfer or sell most of its entire domain, divisions. In 2005, it transferred all of its nuclear sites to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. It then sold its Westinghouse Electric Company subsidiary in February 2006. Later, BNFL sold the separate companies that made up its major subsidiary, British Nuclear Group. By May 2009, BNFL had completed the sales of all its assets and had no remaining operational activities or businesses. BNFL continued to exist only as a legal entity to meet all pension liabilities and any obligations arising from disposal programmes. However, on 14 October 2010, Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude announced that BNFL would be abolished along with a number of other government organisations. ==History== British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was set up in February 1971 from the demerger of the production division of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). In 1984 BNFL became a public limited company as British Nuclear Fuels plc, wholly owned by the UK government. Under the chairmanship of Christopher Harding, the Windscale plant was renamed as "Sellafield" and BNFL created a visitor centre at the site in a bid to improve its public image. US subsidiary BNFL Inc was established in 1990 and specialised in decontamination and decommissioning of nuclear sites. In 1996 the UK's eight most advanced nuclear plants, seven Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (AGR) and one Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) were privatised as British Energy, raising £2.1 billion. The oldest reactors, the Magnox sites, were not attractive for commercial operations and remained in public ownership as Magnox Electric. On 30 January 1998 Magnox Electric was merged into BNFL as BNFL Magnox Generation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「BNFL」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|