British Nuclear Fuels has dismissed newspaper reports that the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing plant at Sellafield, known as THORP, will close down in seven years.
The £1.8bn facility, which opened in 1994, reprocesses spent fuel from nuclear reactors.
Today's Guardian and Irish Times newspapers say that the THORP plant will close in 2010.
However, a BNFL spokesman has flatly denied that its site director gave such a date.
The British nuclear industry had hoped that THORP would be the answer to many problems, bringing in much needed finance from Japan by dealing with its nuclear waste, while also generating electricity.
However, its opponents argued it was not needed, the plutonium and uranium by-products were not of any use, while radioactive liquid emissions would put it on a collision course with the Irish Government.
Today's Guardian and Irish Times report that the plant will now close in 2010 because the plant is working at only 50% capacity and the nuclear by-products are mounting with nowhere to go.
British Nuclear Fuels, however, has dismissed the story.
It says ownership of the site is due to pass over to a new regulatory authority and so it would be impossible for any BNFL spokesman to say when the site will close.
THORP is currently half-way through its order book, which should run out around 2010. The British government had previously ruled that it could not take on any new contracts without its approval.
Here, the Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, is seeking clarification from the British government.
He said the Irish Government's top priority is to end radioactive emissions into the Irish Sea.
