UK radioactive waste disposal site search continues despite opposition
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Version 0 of 1. Plans costing £4bn to identify and create a geological disposal site for the UK’s radioactive waste are being hindered by a “nuclear perception problem” say experts. It is estimated that the lifetime cost of disposing of the radioactive waste accumulated to date will cost the taxpayer around £12bn, with £4bn estimated to be spent before the waste can be buried. Surveys available to date indicate that 30% of the UK, excluding Scotland, could be geologically suitable for such a site. But Alun Ellis, science and technology director of Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), the government-owned company asked to deliver a geological disposal unit, said that “the other half of the problem – the more difficult half – is how we overcome the social and political challenges.” RWM is preparing to launch a public information campaign on the issue in September. A screening process to identify the most suitable areas in the UK for such a site will complete by 2017. In April, a new law redefining radioactive waste sites as “nationally significant infrastructure projects” which central government therefore have the final say on, was passed in the final hours before parliament was disbanded for the election. Ellis said: “For the vast majority of people, there is an immediate nuclear dread and a lack of familiarity with all things nuclear. The links to the nuclear bomb certainly don’t help and there’s no hiding the fact that the roots were part of the defence related programme, which very rapidly in the UK moved onto generating electricity. But people in nuclear communities understand the need for geological disposal and are much more amenable to having a discussion.” The decades long search for a disposal site in the UK has stalled since Cumbria’s county council voted against a proposal in 2013, with the government last year offering local communities willing to consider the option up to £40m. Although experts say that it take up to 35 years to select and construct a waste disposal site, critics suggest that the government is keen to demonstrate progress in order to increase public support for a new generation of reactors. A deal to finalise the development of the UK’s first nuclear site in 25 years is expected to be signed in coming weeks. It is estimated that the heavily subsidised project at Hinkley Point C will generate 7% of the country’s electricity needs. Greenpeace said: “This consultation is just a bit of window dressing since the previous government’s last act was to rush through a law allowing ministers to bypass opposition from local councils. “People have every right to be concerned about their communities becoming dumping grounds for nuclear waste, and every right to want to have a final say. Although we’re nowhere near finding a solution to the problem of safe storage, ministers are about to make it worse by building a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley.” Finding a site that is geologically appropriate is a challenge because nuclear waste can take hundreds of thousands of years to fully decay in storage units buried up to 1km underground. But Ellis says that the social and political issues are an equal challenge. “We need to develop this facility in a community that is willing to host it – it is a necessary condition for success,” he added. Ellis said that although the opinions of local communities would be “taken into account”, he accepted that ultimately the secretary of state now has the power to overrule communities. The UK has accumulated around 4.5m cubic metres of nuclear waste – enough to fill Wembley stadium four times over – since the development of nuclear facilities began after the second world war. Created through electricity generation, defence operations and medical facilities such as radiography, most of this waste is currently stored at surface level in vaults and buildings on a site in Sellafield on the Cumbrian coast. The search for a disposal site concerns the most highly active 10%, which cannot be be reused or managed at the surface. Ellis added: “Once we’ve got the waste packaged, the problem isn’t urgent, but it isn’t going to go away. There’s an intergenerational equity issue here - you could go for a policy of saying it’s safe on the surface, commit yourself to refurbishing the stores every hundred years and pass the burden onto the next generation. But the government’s policy is that we’re the generation that’s generated this waste – we really should be dealing with the problem and the international consensus is that the correct long term solution to it is geological disposal.” |