Nuclear fuel reprocessing. Workers in a control room at a centre for reprocessing waste nuclear fuel from nuclear power stations. Waste nuclear fuel, a highly radioactive mix of nuclear fission products and unused nuclear fuel, is stored under water here for a few years to allow the radioactivity to decrease. Eventually, the unused fuel (plutonium and uranium) will be extracted to make new fuel rods. The waste fission products will be sealed in containers and stored for hundreds of years until they are safe. This is the UP3 facility at the La Hague reprocessing centre in northern France. Photographed in 2004.