Two areas of Wales chosen for consultation on burying the UK’s lethal nuclear waste stockpile. People in two areas of Wales are to be consulted over plans to bury the UK’s stockpile of the most dangerous radioactive waste at a new site. The meetings are being held as the UK Government searches for a site where it can bury the lethal waste that has been accumulating from nuclear power stations over the last 60 years. Government-run Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) meeting is holding an event in Swansea on Tuesday, March 12, and a second in Llandudno on March 14. No details of any potential sites have been made public and it is understood that the body is seeking “a willing host community” where radioactive waste can be buried hundreds of metres underground.
Wales Online 6th Feb 2019 read more »
Daily Post 6th Feb 2019 read more »
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) fully supports the resolution passed by Newry, Mourne and Down Council that opposes a deep radioactive waste repository coming to its area, or any other part of Northern Ireland for that matter. The concerns come after a recent video placed on the Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) website includes Northern Ireland (as well as of English regions and Wales). The video gives an overview of its geology in terms of generic suitability for hosting what is called a ‘Geological Disposal Facility’. This would be a deep underground repository to store much of the UK’s high and intermediate level radioactive waste from the past 70 years of the nuclear cycle for hundreds of thousands of years. Whilst the Northern Ireland Government has not sat for over 2 years at Stormont, the Northern Ireland Executive has supported ‘geological disposal’ of radioactive waste as a policy for some time and theoretically a Northern Ireland Council or community could express an interest to host such material. The UK Government and Welsh Governments, who also formally support ‘geological disposal’ are currently encouraging Councils to consider expressing an interest. RWM admit though that Northern Ireland is the ‘region least likely’ to host such a repository. Northern Ireland is not an appropriate location for the long-term deep-underground storage of radioactive waste, and NFLA have always found it peculiar that the Northern Ireland Executive has supported the policy.
NFLA 6th Feb 2019 read more »
The Border town of Newry is being considered as a location to dispose of the United Kingdom’s nuclear waste, with research identifying the area as potentially suitable for an underground disposal facility. It is one of five sites in Northern Ireland under consideration as possible stores for the waste and among 45 being examined across the UK as whole. An area of granite bedrock near Newry may be suitable for a geological disposal facility (GDF), according to a recent preliminary report by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), a UK State-owned company. The area of rock stretches from Slieve Gullion to the Mourne mountains. Geological disposal sites hold radioactive waste hundreds of metres underground, and there are no current facilities in Northern Ireland. Future policy decisions on nuclear disposal in Northern Ireland rest with the Stormont executive, where power-sharing has been collapsed for more than two years. The British government’s current preference is that one facility would service the entire UK, a spokesman for RWM has said. Any future facility would need the support of the local community before it could be approved.
Irish Times 7th Feb 2019 read more »
Louth TD Gerry Adams has written to the Minister for the Environment Richard Bruton TD asking if the government is “aware of or was consulted about a proposal by the British state’s Radioactive Waste Management group to store waste nuclear material deep underground in the Mournes and Slieve Gullion area.” Gerry Adams said: “The Irish government must ensure that the British government knows that it will not tolerate any nuclear waste facility being constructed on the island of Ireland”.
Sinn Fein 6th Feb 2019 read more »
Landowners across Cumbria can suggest sites for a controversial nuclear waste facility without backing from their local authority. Anyone with a reasonably-sized patch of land can volunteer it as a contender for the multi-million Geological Disposal Facility (GDF), effectively kick-starting the process, a meeting heard. However, geological experts would first have to rigorously assess the suitability of the site and the people of a possible host site would have the final say – possibly in a referendum. The nuclear repository was discussed by Copeland Council’s Strategic Nuclear and Energy Board on Wednesday – the first time members had met officially the Government re-opened its search for a host community before Christmas. The board agreed to launch a series of briefing sessions to bring members up to speed as the council starts the process of thrashing out a formal position. David Moore, portfolio holder for nuclear and corporate services, stressed that this was the beginning of a “long journey” which could take more than 20 years.
In Cumbria 6th Feb 2019 read more »
Councillors in west Cumbria will discuss whether an underground nuclear waste store should be considered for the area. The Government has re-opened the search for a community that would be willing to house such a facility. The plans caused huge controversy in West Cumbria when first raised, before being rejected by Cumbria County Council in 2013. This will be the first time Copeland Council’s nuclear panel has met since last month’s announcement that the Government would be re-opening the hunt for a volunteer “host community”. The council is yet to agree its official stance on the creation of a multi-billion pound underground waste repository known as a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). But today’s meeting of the authority’s Strategic Nuclear and Energy Board will kick-start the thrashing out of that formal position.
ITV 6th Feb 2019 read more »
Britain has been pushing the question of the future of its radioactive waste for years. To remedy this, the current government has launched a campaign to seduce rural communities to encourage them to host the site of the future nuclear bin. The time is gone when the British settled the issue of nuclear waste by throwing them into the English Channel . However, no long-term solution has come to replace this expeditious method. Radioactive waste accumulated for decades has been in power plants, most of them in Sellafield, in northwestern England. They are stored there in precarious plastic bottles or in skips placed at the bottom of tanks of water with degraded concrete and exposed to bad weather. This was revealed by a BBC documentary in 2016. ” This show has shown a negative image of our safety, in which we do not recognize ourselves “said a representative of the plant at the time. One of the whistleblowers who spoke to the BBC , a former senior executive at Sellafield, said he was worried ” every day ” about the state of the center.
Reporterre 6th Feb 2019 read more »
The nuclear industry, and governments across the world, have yet to find a solution to the nuclear waste legacy, the highly dangerous radioactive remains that are piling up in unsafe stores in many countries. A report commissioned by Greenpeace France says there is now a serious threat of a major accident or terrorist attack in several of the countries most heavily reliant on nuclear power, including the US, France and the UK. The report fears for what may be to come: “When the stability of nations is measured in years and perhaps decades into the future, what will be the viability of states over the thousands-of-year timeframes required to manage nuclear waste?” Hundreds of ageing nuclear power stations now have dry stores or deep ponds full of old used fuel, known as spent fuel, from decades of refuelling reactors. The old fuel has to be cooled for 30 years or more to prevent it spontaneously catching fire and sending a deadly plume of radioactivity hundreds of miles downwind. Some idea of the dangerous radiation involved is the fact that standing one metre away from a spent fuel assembly removed from a reactor a year previously could kill you in about one minute, the Greenpeace report says.
Climate News Network 7th Feb 2019 read more »
