The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) notes that over 70 Welsh unitary, county, city, town and community councils have passed resolutions formally opposing taking any interest in hosting a deep underground radioactive waste repository. The figure was noted at a joint meeting in Menai Bridge organised by the NFLA Welsh Forum in conjunction with the groups PAWB, CADNO and CND Cymru. At a presentation provided by the NFLA Secretary, he noted that there had been real anger and frustration raised across Welsh and Northern Irish Councils in particular to the request made by the UK Government for considering hosting a large deep underground repository to store over 60 years of higher activity radioactive waste, as well as possibly additional waste should new nuclear power stations ever be built. Even in England, a number of nuclear site Councils have indicated their public opposition to hosting a repository. NFLA have noted some of these issues in its response to RWM regarding its consultation on how any proposed sites will be evaluated.

NFLA 18th April 2019 read more »

“There are difficult issues in understanding how materials corrode over really long time spans,” said Gerald FrankelExternal link, director of the Center for Performance and Design of Nuclear Waste Forms and Containers (WastePD). “These are scientific issues,” he continued. “That’s why we need fundamental science.” Frankel, an Ohio State University professor, focuses that scientific lens on glass, ceramics, and metals used to trap Cold War leftovers, including ~90 million gallons of radioactive liquid and sludge (like wet beach sand). Solidifying the waste as glass or ceramics keeps it from leaking into soil and groundwater. The solid form holds the waste in for thousands of years, giving the radioactive matter time to decay to safer levels.

USDoE 27th March 2019 read more »

Weighting of evaluation criteria to allow more effective comparison between potential sites, and taking account of wider statutory obligations, are amongst the common key themes from a wide range of stakeholders’ responses to RWM’s Site Evaluation public consultation. Now closed, it is thought that the two parallel public consultations in England and in Wales have attracted about 70-80 responses. Some of those responses are published below, with permission of their authors. there are certain key issues or themes which appear across the stakeholder spectrum, from industry and local authorities to environmentalists and local activist groups. They also reflect issues raised at each of the regional stakeholder workshops which GDFWatch attended. These include: general awareness of the difficulty of using quantitative comparators, but a widespread sentiment that RWM need to find some way of ranking/weighting criteria so that a robust comparison can be made effectively between different sites under evaluation, especially when they might be at different stages of development; the need for RWM to take account of wider statutory obligations, on themselves and other third parties, eg the legal obligations placed on all public bodies under the Environment Act 1995 and the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000; the omission of any reference to the Future Generations Act (FGA) in the Welsh consultation document and the consequent statutory obligations placed upon RWM when operating in Wales; “community” site evaluation criteria should not just be ‘socioeconomic’, but look at wider social and environmental impacts, including governance of the siting process and how RWM will actually collaborate and work with communities; geology should be a more prominent criteria, particularly hydrogeology, amid ongoing public concern about contamination of underground water sources; the need to keep site evaluation criteria under review, for example by ensuring the criteria are aligned with the National Policy Statement (in England) and Technical Advisory Note (in Wales) when these are eventually published, and to consult again if necessary; whether ethics and intergenerational equity/justice should be included amongst the site evaluation criteria; “security”, on site and during transport of waste, is also frequently raised as a criteria which should be given more prominence.

GDF Watch 14th April 2019 read more »

Siting a geological disposal facility for our radioactive waste. At the Geological Society February 2019 Public Lecture, Jonathan Turner from Radioactive Waste Management, introduced us to one of the UK’s largest planned environmental projects: a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) for our radioactive waste.

Geological Society of London Blog 26th March 2019 read more »

Experts in local democracy, community development, engagement and communications – do you want to help shape how communities can actively participate in decision-making for a major infrastructure project? Recruitment is underway for up to 8 new members for the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), the Government’s expert advisory panel. This is the latest important step in CoRWM’s evolution from a purely scientific and technical group, to one which can also effectively monitor and advise on how RWM implements the Government’s Working With Communities policy.

GDF Watch 8th April 2019 read more »

Wrexham will be ruling itself out as a possible option to become a nuclear waste dump, with the First Minister making it clear if no local authority comes forward then there will be no disposal sites in Wales. Those who are following our new more in-depth coverage from Cardiff Bay will have seen the issue of nuclear waste being dumped raised in the Senedd chamber itself, where we pointed out Wrexham could explicitly opt out.

Wrexham.com 13th April 2019 read more »

Personnel from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) working at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) are using new technology to perform in-situ characterisation of the contents of hundreds of radioactive waste containers prior to shipment for permanent disposal.

World Nuclear News 12th April 2019 read more »

On 21st October 1975, the Daily Mirror front page had splashed across it the banner headline “Plan to make Britain World’s nuclear dustbin” shock report on our lethal imports. This so shocked Labour Government ministers that two left winger Cabinet members (both now deceased) Peter Shore, the environment secretary, and energy secretary Tony Benn, [both having just lost the first Brexit referendum, having campaigned to leave] that they got together to change national policy and ban the import of radioactive waste, and insisted any imported to date must be returned to the country of origin under a return-to-sender determination, which the Observer’s former doyenne of environmental reporters, Geoff Lean, reported in January and February of 1976. On 23 January 2019 the regulations pasted below were passed into law ‘on the nod’ in Parliament. Up until now, importing radioactive was into Britain was not permitted. ( except in exceptional circumstances, such as removal of bomb-useable radioactive waste materials from unstable regions to stop terrorists getting their hands on it, as happened with an emergency airfreighting of such nuclear materials from Georgia to Scotland a decade ago). But these new regulations will allow that to happen in future, commercially. This is what the then energy minister, Richard Harrington, revealed to MPs in a scrutiny committee session (in a so-called ‘Delegated Legislation committee) on this week, full speech pasted below: “The draft regulations set out a regime to ensure that radioactive waste and spent fuel are not shipped into or out of the UK without prior authorisation from the relevant competent authorities.”

David Lowry’s Blog 10th April 2019 read more »

British Patient Capital has been appointed manage £250m on behalf of the UK’s Nuclear Liabilities Fund (NLF), the government vehicle set up to help fund some of the costs of nuclear power plant decommissioning, it announced today. BPC – a wholly-owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the UK government’s economic development bank – said it would be channelling the £250m towards growth capital funds, targeting investment in “high potential innovative companies across the UK”.

Business Green 11th April 2019 read more »

Orano TN’s NUHOMS dry storage systems will be allowed to store used nuclear fuel with significantly shorter cooling times and higher decay heat under licensing amendments approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The reduced cooling times – as short as two years – create flexibility for transferring used nuclear fuel from storage pools to dry storage pads at both operating and shut-down nuclear reactor sites, the company said. This is of particular significance for reactor sites scheduled for permanent shutdown, as it means the decommissioning milestone of “pool-to-pad” fuel transfer can potentially be completed years sooner. This in turn reduces site emergency planning requirements and costs, while enabling the site to accelerate plant decommissioning and achieve partial licence termination.

World Nuclear News 10th April 2019 read more »