News

CoRWM report must not be seen as ‘green light’ to new reactors

The chair of the Government's Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), Professor Gordon MacKerron has said the Committee's final report, expected in July 2006, should not be seen as a 'green light' to new nuclear reactors.

" We think it is important that there is a full review of the waste implications of any new-build programme, and not to take our report as somehow having managed the entire problem - because the politics and ethics are different, even if the technology is not," said Prof Mackerron.

Although separate, decisions about radioactive waste management and whether or not to build new nuclear reactors are inextricably linked through a basic ethical question: is it right to commit the UK to creating more radioactive waste while society has yet to find an acceptable long-term option for handling the material already in existence?

CoRWM's draft final report stresses that just because it will make recommendations on the best method of nuclear waste management in July 2006, this will not mean the issue is resolved. The recommended strategy will only be the start of seeking a solution: “If ministers accept our recommendations, the UK's nuclear waste problem is not solved. Having a strategy is a start. The real challenge follows.”

CoRWM envisages a lengthy, three-stage process of deciding on a storage method, setting out a clear implementation plan, and then arguably the most difficult resolving issues of public confidence. Its report will only make recommendations on the first stage.

The nuclear industry claims that a new generation of reactors would add only 10% to the volume of radioactive waste, but this is misleading because the majority of existing waste is made up of bulky, less hazardous material. As the nuclear waste management body Nirex, points out, the volume is not the whole story, we also need to know what type of waste we will be left with by a programme of new reactors. CoRWM’s Radioactive Waste Inventory shows that a programme of ten new reactors will leave us with three times the amount of higher-level wastes than we have already created.

BBC 14th Feb 2006

CoRWM's Draft Report

Herald 26th January 2006

Guardian, 9th January 2006

CoRWM’s Radioactive Waste and Materials Inventory July 2005