Serious Gaps in UK nuclear waste plans
01 January 1991
Serious Gaps in UK nuclear waste plans
artdoc March=1992
There are serious gaps and many unanswered problems in the UK
Government plans to bury radioactive waste, according to a team
of experts from the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA).
The report from the six-man team from the IAEA highlights
several major problems with the long-term storage of radioactive
waste which remain unsolved by the UK nuclear industry.
The Government has given the job of building a radioactive waste
repository to the nuclear industry company NIREX. NIREX has
identified two possible sites in the UK for a huge radioactive
waste repository - Sellafield on the coast of the Irish Sea and
Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland.
Sellafield and Dounreay are the sites of the UK's two nuclear
reprocessing plants, where plutonium is extracted from spent fuel
rods from UK, European and Japanese reactors. Medical
researchers have discovered high levels of leukaemia in children
around the two reprocessing site and nuclear industry workers are
now expressing grave concern over health and safety at the two
plants.
NIREX plans to construct the waste repository either by
tunnelling under the seabed from the land, or by building it deep
underground close to the coast. The Government has also refused
to rule out using North Sea oil technology to drill holes into
the seabed for radioactive waste.
NIREX is already drilling test boreholes at Sellafield. The
first hole had to be abandoned due to difficulties with the rock
structure, which is known to be unpredictable in the area. This
increases the possibility of Dounreay being chosen for the NIREX
waste dump. Permission to start test drilling at Dounreay is
awaited from the Government, but the plans have already been
rejected by the Highland Regional Council and the people of
Caithness, in which the nuclear industry is the biggest employer,
has also rejected the NIREX plans in a referendum last year.
Although both the Sellafield and Dounreay sites are on the coast,
the IAEA report states that the effect of salt water on the drums
of radioactive waste had not been investigated by NIREX. The
IAEA experts also found that organic materials mixed in with the
radioactive waste could greatly increase the danger of plutonium
escaping from the repository.
The report also highlighted a major problem which NIREX has not
yet solved. Organic material in the waste will decay and create
gas which must be allowed to escape. The unsolved problem is how
to allow the gas to escape - without allowing the radioactivity
to escape along the same route.
The IAEA report also expresses concern that the building of the
repository could cause fractures in the rock structure allowing
radioactive water to escape.
* Copies of the IAEA report and the NIREX reply are available
from NENIG
NENIG Briefing no 39, April 1990