[ RadSafe ] Fears over plans to dump nuclear waste in Scotland

[Marcel Schouwenburg]

News from the UK. (received through another list [srp])

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Sunday Herald reports :-

Fears over plans to dump nuclear waste in Scotland

http://www.sundayherald.com/print48827


RADIOACTIVE waste could end up being dumped at 30 nuclear sites in
the UK, under plans to be unveiled by government advisers this week.
In Scotland this would mean burying large volumes of low-level waste
at six places: Hunterston in Ayrshire, Faslane near Helensburgh,
Torness in East Lothian, Rosyth in Fife, Dounreay in Caithness and
Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway.
The plans would see more dangerous waste being disposed of in holes
deep underground at one or more geologically suitable sites in the
UK. Before that, it could be put in "interim storage" above or just
below the ground.
The recommendations are to be published tomorrow by the Committee on
Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), set up by the government in
2003 to try and find a way to deal with the huge variety of waste
created by the nuclear power and weapons industries over the last 50
years.
According to CoRWM's estimates, there will be a total of 470,000
cubic metres of radioactive waste to get rid of, including
plutonium, uranium and high-level fission products. Some of these
wastes remain radioactive for just a few years, others for hundreds
of thousands of years.
This total doesn't include the 18 million cubic metres of soil and
concrete thought to be contaminated with low-level radioactivity
from leaks and spills at nuclear sites. There are an estimated
81,000 cubic metres of contaminated soil at the Hunterston A reactor
site in Ayrshire.
CoRWM's proposal is for some of the short-lived waste to be buried
in shallow pits on the nuclear sites where it was created. This
would avoid the need to transport the waste around the country.
"It would mean that some radioactive waste would stay put," CoRW's
chairman, Gordon MacKerron said. "But only if we were sure that the
risks to future generations were negligible."
For longer-lived waste, CoRWM thinks the best solution is some kind
of "deep disposal". One option is to put the waste permanently in an
underground chamber between 300 metres and two kilometres deep where
the surrounding rocks would reduce the risk of leakage.
A second option is to put the waste down deep holes from which it
could be retrieved if something went wrong. Before either of these
options are implemented, waste could also carry on being stored in
tanks near the ground's surface for some years.
CoRWM is not making any suggestions as to where these deep disposal
sites might be. An official shortlist from the 1990s of about a
dozen sites - many of which are suspected of being in Scotland - has
been kept secret by the government.
In a consultation document to be released tomorrow, CoRWM will for
the first time be ruling out 11 ways that have been seriously
suggested for disposing of radioactive waste. These include blasting
it into space, injecting it into rock, freezing it in polar ice and
dumping it at sea.
"Everyone has played their part in helping us draw up our final
shortlist. Now we can start to focus on the best options and see
which will work and which won't," said MacKerron.
CoRWM has had difficulties drawing up its recommendations because
two of its members are suspended pending an investigation being
carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs. The committee has also been attacked by some experts for
wasting time trying to establish the obvious.
But its role has been defended by UK environment minister, Elliot
Morley. "The CoRWM programme will ensure that there is a complete
decision-making audit trail. We are ultimately talking of solutions
that will cost billions of pounds and decades to implement. Taking a
little time now to get the decision right represents time and money
well spent."
CoRWM is aiming to submit its final report to ministers in July
2006. The newly formed government agency which will oversee the £50
billion job of cleaning up Britain's nuclear plants, the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority, came into existence on Friday.

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Marcel Schouwenburg - RadSafe moderator & List owner
Head Training Center Delft
National Center for Radiation Protection (Dutch abbr. NCSV)

Faculty of Applied Sciences / Reactor Institute Delft
Delft University of Technology
Mekelweg 15
NL - 2629 JB  DELFT
The Netherlands
Phone +31 (0)15 27 86575
Fax     +31 (0)15 27 81717
email   m.schouwenburg op iri.tudelft.nl