Nuclear Waste
Storing nuclear waste deep underground was recommended by scientific experts yesterday, but technical answers remain decades away and communities may have to be bribed to accept such sites.
Herald 1st August 2006
FEW reasonable observers would have expected the First Minister, Jack McConnell, to jump off the fence the instant that the independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management produced its long-awaited report. This is a sensitive issue for the Executive, and the First Minister’s opponents have made much capital of his fence- sitting.
Scotsman 1st August 2006
Environment Minister Ross Finnie has pledged that public safety would be given top priority when dealing with the burial of nuclear waste.
BBC 31st July 2006
Commenting on the report by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) which recommended that radioactive waste should be stored in a deep underground repository, Lembit Opik, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and MP for Montgomeryshire, said: “If the least bad way for managing our 6,000 tonnes of nuclear waste is deep ground burial, it just goes to show how bad our nuclear waste problem really is. “We have no choice but to manage our existing nuclear waste. But we don’t have to add to this problem by building more nuclear power stations. The lesson is, when you are in a hole, stop digging.
News Wales 1st August 2006
It is now “time to get on with the job” of burying the UK’s radioactive waste deep underground, a nuclear advisory group has said in its final report.
BBC 31st July 2006
The search for underground nuclear waste storage sites is unlikely to focus on Notts, claims Paddy Tipping MP.
Government suggestions that the UK would rely more on nuclear power in the future sparked a study into where the resulting radioactive waste might be stored. A similar search in the late 1980s earmarked 13 potential underground storage sites in Notts, among 537 in the UK. None of the sites on that list, only released last year, were used. But Nirex, the agency which oversees radioactive waste disposal, has previously said they could not be ruled out of inclusion on a future list.
Nottingham Evening Post 1st August 2006
ANTI-NUCLEAR campaigners have already condemned plans to bury radioactive waste as fatally flawed. They argue that waste should be stored above ground where the authorities can keep an eye on it. Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, said: “You’ll never get one community to volunteer to have what is, in effect, an international nuclear waste dump. “They may get a few communities currently associated with the nuclear industry who will agree to take their own waste but nobody else’s. “In 10, 15 or 20 years time we will be back to square one.”
Carlisle News and Star 1st August 2006
The debate over whether Cumbria should house a deep underground nuclear dump is about to reopen.
Carlisle News and Star 1st August 2006
Communities across the Westcountry could be invited to provide a home for a massive new radioactive waste dump under proposals put forward yesterday for dealing with the legacy of Britain’s nuclear industry. In its final report on dealing with the tens of thousands of tonnes of waste generated by the civil and military nuclear programmes the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management said an underground dump remained the best option – despite the difficulty of identifying a site.
Western Morning News 1st August 2006
The Government need to urgently implement interim measures to ensure nuclear waste is stored safely while investigating longer term measures to deal with the problem, Friends of the Earth warned today. The move comes as Government advisors published a report which concludes that a deep geological nuclear waste dump might take100 years to approve and construct.
Friends of the Earth Press Release 31st July 2006
Britain’s stockpile of 470,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste, enough to fill the Albert Hall five times, should be “entombed” in deep underground silos, a committee advised the Government yesterday.
Belfast Telegraph 1st August 2006
Independent 1st August 2006
Britain should take steps to join the ranks of countries planning to store nuclear waste deep underground, an advisory committee has told the government. Because any such plan will take decades to implement, the panel adds that politicians need to act on the committee’s recommendations immediately.
Nature 1st August 2006
Once a pioneer of atomic power, the UK is now a serious laggard in what to do with spent fuel from it. Yesterday the government-appointed Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) wound up three years of work by stating that higher level waste should eventually be buried deep underground. It called meantime for “a robust programme of interim storage”. This is a statement of the obvious: virtually every government wants to bury its waste, but until it can convince its citizens of this it has to accept surface storing of spent fuel. So the report by CoRWM, which calls for a new body to implement its proposals on actually choosing a waste burial site, does not take the UK much further forward than it was in 1982 when it started to study the waste issue. Indeed it may be that CoRWM, whose initial brief included examination of such impractical options as burying waste in the Antarctic or shooting it into space, was partly set up to delay any new nuclear reactors. For last month’s government announcement of its preference for new reactors effectively depends on dealing with the waste of existing reactors. CoRWM correctly says its report should not be taken as “a green light” for new reactors, but if the UK cannot take steps to deal with past or unavoidable waste, it will surely have difficulty with future or avoidable waste.
FT 1st August 2006
Corwm’s recommendations leave the small matter of finding a suitable site. The committee says neither it nor the government should make that decision. This is probably wise, given that public resistance to the old approach of government dictating to rather than consulting people about a site was decisive in plans for deep disposal of nuclear waste being abandoned in the 1980s. Instead, the committee says it should be left to communities to volunteer, attracted by a range of infrastructure and other incentives.
Herald 1st August 2006
Devolution could add tens of billions of pounds to the bill for disposing of nuclear waste, it emerged yesterday at the launch of a two-year independent study. Professor Gordon MacKerron, the chairman of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, conceded that the deep repository his committee recommended as the means of disposal might have to be several repositories if regions refused to take each other’s waste.
Telegraph 1st August 2006
The burial site for Britain’s stockpile of nuclear waste should be decided by a country-wide contest in which regions bid to become home to the hole, a government advisory panel said yesterday.
Guardian 1st August 2006
JACK McConnell, the First Minister, will today come under renewed pressure to say whether he favours building new nuclear power stations in Scotland. Mr McConnell will face fresh questions over his stance after the publication of the final report from the independent body charged with finding ways of safely disposing of nuclear waste.
Scotsman 1st August 2006
Mr McConnell’s spokesman insisted last night the issue was still “unresolved” and needed to be looked at by ministers.
Scotsman 1st August 2006
The independent radioactive waste management company Nirex has listed five sites in Scotland in its top 12 of potential nuclear storage sites. But yesterday Scottish ministers reaffirmed their pledge that no Scottish community will have a nuclear dump imposed on it.
Dundee Courier 1st August 2006
Iran
As the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme intensifies, so does the debate over whether or not Iran really needs its own nuclear fuel cycle.
BBC 1st August 2006
Iran has asserted its right to produce nuclear energy a day after the United Nations passed a resolution demanding it suspend uranium enrichment.
BBC 1st August 2006
Iran reacted angrily Tuesday to a UN Security Council resolution ordering the Islamic to freeze sensitive nuclear work by the end of the month.
Middle East Online 1st August 2006
The United Nations Security Council has given Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium enrichment.
Telegraph 31st July 2006
India
India has stepped up security at its nuclear installations fearing an attack by a Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the defence minister told parliament on Monday.
Reuters 31st July 2006
New Nukes
Wolverhampton based Nuclear Engineering Services Limited, plays a leading in decommissioning work; producing equipment to help safely take old nuclear power stations apart and return their sites to green fields. And those 50 years’ of engineering experience makes NESL a prime candidate for work making parts for a new generation of nuclear power stations, envisaged by the current Government under its Energy Review published this summer.
Express and Star 31st July 2006
Last week, the chief executive of Scottish & Southern Energy told shareholders he and his colleagues are keeping an “active watching brief” on the group’s nuclear investment options. No firm decision is likely before the end of the decade, Ian Marchant warned. And if the group does decide to get involved, it certainly won’t be going it alone.
Herald 1st August 2006
Nuclear power is back on the agenda in the UK. But does the country have the skills and manufacturing capability to go ahead with a substantial reactor construction programme?
Nuclear Engineering International 31st July 2006
