13. Nuclear Waste Decision Delayed

Last year the government launched a programme of public consultation, backed up with further research, on nuclear waste disposal, which would culminate in 2005 with a series of options for public consultation and an announcement of the result in 2006. Options include burial, with or without the possibility of retrieval, or above-ground dry storage. Environment Minister Michael Meacher said that the Government was "starting from scratch" following the cancellation by the last government of plans to build an experimental disposal shaft near Sellafield, which was hotly opposed by Cumbria county council.

Meacher said a decision about the disposal of 500,000 tons of nuclear waste that the industry will produce over this century, even if there are no new nuclear power stations, "must not be rushed and may take decades to implement". He added "There is no site on the radar screen at the moment. I want a national debate. I don't want people ever to wake up and find out there is to be a nuclear storage facility near them".

This long consultation exercise could however make it hard for those pushing for new nuclear plants. As Meacher said in an earlier statement, issues related to waste disposal and public acceptability would ‘need to be resolved before industry put forward any proposals for approval’. Will they wait until 2006?

The consultation paper ‘Managing Radioactive Waste Safely’ is available on http://www.defra.gov.uk. There’s also an online conference at: www.ukonline.gov.uk/online/citizenspace/default.asp?url=consultation/default.asp

* The Nuclear Free Local Authorities have argued that there is no case for supporting new nuclear plants at present, given the uncertainties about nuclear waste, public opinion and the economics of as yet untried new technology. It suggests however that a stakeholder review panel be set up to keep a watching brief on developments, reporting annually to government. See www.gn.apc.org/nfzsc

Tories for Nuclear

At a fringe meeting organised by Trade Unionists for Safe Nuclear Energy at last years Conservative party conference, the Conservatives new trade and industry spokesman, Robert Key, said an expansion of nuclear power was unavoidable if Britain’s energy needs were to be met. He warned that the California nightmare of a blackout caused by power running out could be repeated in the UK without more nuclear power. "When the TV won’t work and when ovens won’t come on because of a shortage of energy, people tend to be sensible about nuclear power as an option. When the threat of our lights going out is staring us in the face, then have no doubt that public opinion will change." He added "Nuclear power is a viable proposition and produces clean fuel, although it does produce the problem of nuclear waste which we need a technological solution to".

* But all is not well within the industry. Adopting surely the ‘last ditch’ position for the nuclear lobby, British Energy says, in effect, that if the government doesn’t take over the nuclear liabilities BE has inherited, it might shift its operations to the USA. BE also seem to have fallen out with BNFL over its reprocessing contract.

Safe Nuclear?

The last few months have seen attempts by the authorities around the world to tighten up security around nuclear facilities. Perhaps the most extreme position so far was adopted by German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin who commented that security would be guaranteed not by sealing aeroplane cockpits but by closing down nuclear plants, as is already currently planned - by 2030. But he also talked of the need for emergency plant closures in case of a credible threat of terrorist attack.

In the U.S.A. moves were made to increase the security of nuclear plants - there was a scare in Oct. at the Three Mile Island plant and in Feb it was revealed that U.S. forces have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants in Afghanistan. In the UK the role of the UKAEA’s armed police has been revised- though so far there seem to be no plans for siting anti-aircraft missiles around Sellafield. That’s something France did rapidly at its reprocessing plant at Cap la Hague on the Brittany coast.

BNFL however was evidently very affronted by an article in New Scientist claiming that the nuclear waste tanks at Sellafield were a relatively unprotected, easy, target for air attack. According to the article in New Scientist, a direct hit by a passenger jet on the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant would contaminate Britain with two and a half times more radioactivity than the amount that escaped during the Chernobyl disaster. Up to 2,646lb of the highly radioactive and long-lasting isotope caesium-137 would be released into the atmosphere, contaminating Britain, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond, making swathes of the country uninhabitable and causing more than two million cancers.

In a strongly worded condemnation, BNFL, insisted that the article was an example of "scaremongering at its worst based on such sensational scenarios that it borders on science fiction". BNFL insisted the tanks referred to in the article were some of "the most robust buildings" within the Sellafield complex and said a large biological shield surrounded the tanks. But the Irish government were clearly not convinced and there were calls for Sellafield to be shut down, or at the very least for a no-fly zone to be established over it. There is actually an exclusion zone there - planes cannot fly below 2,200 meters or within a two-mile radius- but that may not provide sufficient protection from hijacked airliners which would take only seconds to reach their target from that distance. As it is, we are evidently just relying on interceptor jets, which take minutes to scramble and arrive.

The Irish government were also incensed at the decision to allow the MOX plutonium fuel plant to go ahead at Sellafield- a response shared by many others worried about its implications for proliferation and terrorist threats. Indeed the whole issue of nuclear fuel and nuclear waste shipments resurfaced. A GLA study claimed that security measures associated with nuclear waste transport by rail through London might not be sufficient. ‘We don’t believe that adequate procedures are yet in place in terms of training exercises to deal with an emergency on one of those trains. Security measures do need to be improved’.

Back in Cumbria, the local anti nuclear group CORE argued that the two ships used by BNFL to transport MOX to Japan were not, as had been suggested ‘sophisticated gun ships’, but, in reality were ‘sluggish merchantmen with a service speed of around 13 knots, easily out-manoeuvered and with pea-shooter armament which presents little defence against missiles or other high-tech attacks’. It also claimed that ‘orders shipped from MDF to Switzerland’s Beznau plant were flown from Carlisle Airport using a light aircraft with the fuel assemblies contained not in transport flasks but in simple wooden crates’.

CORE also claimed that much of BNFL’s 70 tonne plutonium stockpile cannot be used in the new MOX plant at Sellafield because of its age- evidently neither Magnox derived plutonium nor plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons can be used.

STOA’s new report on risks at Sellafield and Cap de La Hague is available at www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/publi/pdf/00-17-01_en.pdf