NUCLEAR WASTE 2

Local authorities will be asked to volunteer to have nuclear waste dumps in their area. Tenders are to be invited from town halls to site nuclear waste bunkers in their areas in return for multimillion-pound investment in local services. David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, confirmed the decision to bury the waste from Britain’s civil nuclear power stations up to 1,000 metres from the surface. The plan, which will cost £10 billion over several decades, will not involve nuclear waste being imposed on any community.

The construction project could take 40 years to complete and it has not yet been decided whether there will be one bunker or several. That will be determined by how many councils show an interest and whether their locations are suitable. Mr Miliband said that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, accountable to independent regulators and the government, would be responsible for the process. Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment Secretary, said that there was a potential conflict of interest in giving responsibility to an authority that owns nuclear facilities.

Mr Miliband also announced that the Government intends to build interim storage facilities capable of holding waste for up to 100 years while the bunker is being built. He would be inviting local authorities around the country to come forward with possible sites. Paul Bettison, of the Local Government Association, said that people would have to be properly consulted about any proposal affecting their area, “There are only a limited number of suitable sites and we must ensure that no national body railroads over the interests of local people.” (Source: Times Online, Oct/06)

The Government is facing legal action over the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria after a decision by the European Commission to take Britain to court over its failure to clean up more than a ton of dangerous radioactive waste. Under the Euratom Treaty, signed by the UK, the commission has the power to order governments to document and dispose of radioactive waste. But the decision to take Britain to the European Court of Justice is the first of its kind, and the Government disputes the legal basis for the decision.

The row centres on the storage of waste plutonium and uranium, kept underwater in reinforced concrete ponds known as B30. These were built in 1959 to store uranium fuel rods used in military and civil reactors. The material accumulated over decades and was never properly documented. The fuel is under water to keep it cool and to shield workers from radiation, and the ponds are thought to contain 1.3 tons of plutonium.

So dangerous is the site that staff are said to be restricted to an hour's work a day near it, and inspectors have been unable to examine the material because of the conditions. The Commission cited eight faults with the UK's proposal, including the lack of dates for decommissioning, detailed description of the work to be done, authorisation for each stage and the naming of individuals who would be responsible.

A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said, "The Euratom Treaty safeguards are neither safety nor environment-related controls. They require the Commission to satisfy itself that nuclear materials 'are not diverted from their intended uses as declared by their users'. Safety and environment-related controls fall within the remit of the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency." (Source: The Independent)

No surprise to learn that decommissioning the UK's ageing nuclear power stations will cost billions of pounds more than originally expected. In its first report, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates that £56bn will have to be spent cleaning up 20 sites. NDA chairman Sir Anthony Cleaver said the £56bn estimate was higher than the £48bn figure the old agency had inherited and is based on the costs over the whole lifetime of the sites, calculated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority and British Nuclear Fuels. A leak was discovered in April 2005 at the Sellafield, in Cumbria, but it could have occurred as long ago as August 2004. An investigation in June found "significant deficiencies", and ordered improvements to be introduced by October.

Inadequate historic records mean that the precise contents of Sellafield and Dounreay are unknown. Among issues that the authority is looking at is the need for an alternative for Drigg in Cumbria, which is the only place in the country where low-level nuclear waste can be stored in perpetuity. Drigg is about 1km from a shoreline that is eroding at the rate of 1 metre a year. Former environment minister Michael Meacher expressed concern at the cost of the decommissioning and questioned plans for future nuclear builds. He said, "Nuclear is neither necessary nor desirable to meet our climate change targets. Despite strenuous efforts over the last 30 years no government has yet solved the problem of safe long-term storage."

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