From Peter Cook, British Geological Survey
Nottingham
Nirex’s proposal for a rock characterisation facility (RCF) at Sellafield has
been rejected by a lengthy public inquiry, as Andrew Blowers notes
(Forum, 10 May, p 55).
The British Geological Survey has been involved in nuclear waste
issues as a contractor to Nirex for many years. Let me make it clear that on
present evidence deep burial is likely to be the best and safest long-term
option for disposing of radioactive waste.
Unlike Germany and the US, which are going ahead with RCFs, Britain still
seems as far away as ever of satisfactorily disposing of its radioactive wastes
despite many years of investigation costing many millions of pounds.
Blowers’s view that “Nirex now seems left with no politically viable
solutions” is questionable, for it is not impossible that other locations in
west Cumbria might be geologically more acceptable than Sellafield was.
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But if the inquiry considers that invasive geological techniques, such as
shaft sinking, are likely to irreversibly affect the natural conditions, how
will it ever be possible to prove or disprove the suitability of an area? Remote
geophysical techniques can never be as reliable as a core or a shaft. Thus
Britain could be ruling out deep disposal as an option for the long-term
disposal of nuclear waste.
Over the past decade a number of excellent multidisciplinary teams, with
great expertise in radioactive waste issues, has been built up as a result of
Nirex funding. If this expertise is dissipated as a consequence of the
uncertainties now surrounding Britain’s radioactive waste programme, it will
take many years, a great deal of money and a great deal of effort to recreate
it—if we ever could.
Absence of the right expertise could in turn further delay the whole process
of safely disposing of radioactive waste. And this would not be in anybody’s
interest.
