From PHILIP RICHARDSON
I read with interest the comments by John Knill, chairman of RWMAC (Letters,
8 December). Many people have been calling for a change in government policy
on radioactive waste management for many years. Britain remains almost the
only member of the nuclear club with no integrated management policy which
includes heat-generating wastes. The only one at the moment is, as Knill
says, to store it and hope to have a solution when disposal is deemed necessary.
Knill says that ‘a considerable amount of experience should have been
acquired about the operation and monitoring of deep repositories of different
types.’ Exactly where are these repositories to be built? Does he mean the
ones overseas which are not planned to be operational before at least 2020?
Little or no monitoring will have been undertaken before decisions here
are taken.
It should be pointed out that those, if any, that are finally built
will, without exception, have benefited from extensive studies carried out
over several years in underground laboratories in the specific rock types
and countries involved. There are currently no such plans in Britain.
I would agree wholeheartedly that there is an urgent need for a change
in the functions of Nirex. It should be scrapped and in its place should
be a body free of the intimate relationship with both the waste producers
and the regulators, which is now the case. It would then be free to examine
all aspects of waste management, including waste minimisation and cleaner
technologies.
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Philip Richardson Ashby de la Zouch Leicestershire
