(U.K.) Nuclear waste: the 1,000-year fudge

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=646245

 

The Independent

 

Nuclear waste: the 1,000-year fudge

 

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

 

12 June 2005

 

Secret plans to postpone solving Britain's nuclear waste crisis for up

to 1,000 years are being drawn up by the nuclear industry, The

Independent on Sunday can reveal.

 

The government-owned British Nuclear Fuels is developing a scheme for

indefinitely storing the intensely dangerous material in giant

" millennium domes " around Britain, leaving it for generations far into

the future to work out what to do with it.

 

The scheme - to be floated at a closed meeting of nuclear experts and

local authority officials in London this week - runs counter to

conventional wisdom. Most experts insist that the safest way of

dealing with highly radioactive wastes is to bury them at least 900

feet underground. Storing them increases the chances that they will

leak out, leading to health risks and making them vulnerable to

terrorists.

 

But the idea is gaining support in Whitehall, following 30 years of

failure to find a disposal site in Britain. Ministers insist that

plans for dealing with the waste must be agreed before any more

nuclear power stations are built.

 

Last week, Nirex, Britain's independent nuclear waste agency,

published a shortlist of 12 locations drawn up for the last attempt to

solve the problem, which ended in failure in 1997 when the then

Secretary of State for the Environment, John Gummer, rejected the

favoured site near the Sellafield nuclear complex. Ministers are due

to launch a new search next year.

 

The BNFL scheme is likely to prove even more controversial. It

envisages building several concrete domes in different regions of the

country for so-called " interim long-term storage " of the wastes. The

domes would be designed to last up to 1,000 years and would be buried

just under the surface of the ground under a layer of rubble or earth.

They could be built almost anywhere, though would most likely be sited

at existing nuclear power plants.

 

" They look exactly like the Millennium Dome, " said one top official

who has seen the plans. " And they seem just as bad an idea. "

 

Proponents of storing waste say that we do not yet know enough about

how to dispose of it safely deep in the ground, and that future

generations are likely to be able to do it better.

 

France, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium are all following the

traditional strategy by investigating sites for deep burial.

 

British Nuclear Fuels said that the scheme was the result of " looking

at new, innovative ways of doing things " as part of drawing up " a

broad range of options " .

 

Sellafield leak casts doubt on nuclear expansion, says minister

 

The leak of tens of thousands of litres of spent fuel at Sellafield is

preventing ministers from making the case for new nuclear power

stations, Alan Johnson has told The Independent on Sunday.

 

The new Trade Secretary says the official investigation into the

incident, in which nuclear liquid gushed unnoticed from a broken pipe

for nine months, will be " very important " in deciding whether to press

ahead with plans for up to 20 new plants.

 

In an interview with this newspaper, Mr Johnson gave a clear signal

that he is increasingly reluctant to make the case for nuclear power,

preferring instead to stress the potential of renewable energy sources.

 

" The Prime Minister has said we will make a decision within the

lifetime of this Parliament on whether we go any further down the

nuclear road. "

 

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is expected to decide this week

whether to press for a criminal prosecution after completing a

preliminary investigation into the Sellafield incident.

 

Mr Johnson also has a tough message for those who are pressing for

carbon-free energy sources but object to new wind farms. " These

aesthetic issues are very proper considerations, but people can't both

want to head down the renewable track and then oppose its results. "

 

Francis Elliott