Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 145Sept-Oct 2003

17.Nuclear wasteland

The UK has separated out a lot of plutonium from spent reactor fuel- BNFL has at least 55 tonnes. Some see it as dangerous waste, others as a potential new fuel. What should be done with it? The main options are: immobilizing the separated plutonium, or using it as a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in existing or new reactors. A recent stakeholder report identifies British Energy’s Sizewell B and two of its younger Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors, Heysham B and Torness, as potential MOX burners, if that route was to be chosen.

Meanwhile, all is not well in terms of the more convention nuclear wastes. Paul Brown, writing in the Guardian on March 31, reported that ‘millions of cubic metres of low-grade nuclear waste from the decommissioning of old power stations have been "discovered" by the government’s radioactive waste advisory body. The radioactive waste management advisory committee says the waste does not appear in the government’s inventories of nuclear waste and there is nowhere for it to be disposed of. There are about 4m cubic metres of nuclear waste unaccounted for on 20 sites.’

In parallel, the hunt is on for possible sites for all the more active wastes. According to the Scottish Sunday Herald, ‘more than 40% of the UK’s potential new radioactive dump sites are in Scotland, mostly in the north and west’. However, Scotland will miss out on the employment that will be secured by the NDA, the government’s new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, in a progamme expected to cost the Treasury up to £1.5bn a year for most of this century (see below). The NDA is to be located in west Cumbria, near Sellafield. That’s hardly surprising, though there were evidently worries from some ministers that the new agency may be "contaminated" by the culture of BNFL.

However, the UKAEA has a more pressing problem- with rabbits. They have been burrowing in to the low level waste dumps at the old Dounreay FBR site. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has told the UKAEA to cut off access to the rabbits, since there is a risk that they might spread radioactive waste around the site and beyond.

Finally, trying to remain neutral, we have avoided talking about the second gulf war, but it should perhaps be mentioned that depleted uranium (DU), used in ammunition as a cheaper and heavier alternative to lead, is a waste material which has potential hazards. According to the Sunday Herald, the Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the battlefield after the first Gulf war. Who knows what has been left this time and what impacts it might have on cancer rates. But at least, back in the USA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is raising the annual fee it levies on U.S. nuclear power plants by $429,000 partly to cover the costs of making the facilities safe from terror attacks or sabotage.

Nuclear waste plans

The White Paper "Managing the Nuclear Legacy" (Cm5552 published in June 2002) set out the Government’s proposals to establish a Liabilities Management Authority, now to be called the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, to ‘drive forward the clean up of civil public sector nuclear liabilities safely, securely, cost effectively and in ways which protect the environment’.

The NDA will be responsible for cleaning up the UK’s various nuclear messes- the ultimate cost of dealing with the UK’s nuclear legacy has been put at £48bn. The aim is the have the NDA up and running by April 2005, subject to parliamentary approval. Sorting out this mess is not a matter of choice. As Peter Roche of Greenpeace commented ‘We need to do something urgently to sort out the nuclear waste mess. If they achieve this, we will all be happy.’

But how should it be done- and who by? The NDA operation will in practice be managed at site level by BNFL and the UK Atomic Energy Agency, at least initially. But, as the Independent noted (May 18th) after the initial management contracts have expired, predatory companies might step in to take over, with Bechel, who the DTI has hired to advise it on setting up the NDA, being an obvious candidate. According to the Independent, another candidate is a subsidiary of Halliburton, the controversial contractor formerly run by US vice-president Dick Cheney.

Leaving aside corporate wranglings like this, the practical issue of what to do with nuclear waste still needs to be resolved. One option for low level waste is burial in landfill sites. Responding to a Parliamentary question on May 6th, Michael Meacher, then still an Environment minister, noted that ‘current policy for controlled burial of low level radioactive wastes at landfill sites is set out in the 1995 White Paper "Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy: Final Conclusions" (Cm2919). The White Paper concluded that controlled burial to landfill should continue to be available as a disposal route, particularly for "small users" of radioactivity- such as hospitals, universities, research laboratories and non-nuclear industries-subject to agreement of the site operators and the necessary regulatory requirements being met. In addition, I accept that the agreement of local residents is also important. Despite acknowledging that there might be sound economic and radiological grounds for encouraging greater use of controlled burial to landfill, Cm2919 concluded that its greater use by the nuclear industry should not be encouraged due to genuine anxieties that the proposal aroused among local residents.’

In response to a follow up question he noted that there had been tests to check the safety of this approach: ‘An assessment of the radiological impact of disposals of radioactive waste from nuclear sites to Clifton Marsh was carried out in 2002 as part of the Environment Agency’s review of radioactive waste disposal authorisations from the BNFL Springfields site. This showed that the operational and post-closure risks were acceptable and in line with regulatory guidance. An assessment of the impact of disposals to Hilts Quarry will be carried out in 2003 as part of the Environment Agency’s review of the radioactive waste disposal authorisations for the Rolls Royce Derby site. The Environment Agency has an established programme of environmental monitoring at current and disused landfill sites, focusing on levels of radioactivity in leachate which might arise at landfill sites. The results of this programme are included in the Agency’s annual Radioactivity in the Environment report, copies of which are available in the Library of the House. In most cases results show that radioactivity concentrations are not elevated above levels expected to be found naturally.’

OK, but what about the other cases? Meacher also provided an update on the institutional arrangements for overseeing nuclear waste management. He reported that ‘sponsoring Ministers are currently considering the future of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee in light of the establishment of the new Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, that is being set up to carry forward the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme, and will announce their decision in due course.’ So that’s allright then, it’s all under control. But it’s sad to see Meacher go...