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audio entitled: lords criticise governments nuclear waste management policy. consultation begins 4th april runs till 27th june, Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM)
audio + link to public consultation.
audio entitled: lords criticise governments nuclear waste management policy. consultation begins 4th april runs till 27th june, Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM)
http://www.corwm.org.uk/content-0 Welcome to CoRWM
Welcome to our second round of public and stakeholder engagement - 4 April to 27 June 2005
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) is an independent committee appointed by the UK Government. Our task is to review the options for managing those UK radioactive wastes for which there is no agreed long-term solution. CoRWM has been asked to consult and to make recommendations to the UK Government in 2006. Future decisions and policies will be made by the UK Government.
CoRWM has been asked to work in an open, transparent and inclusive manner, to provide an opportunity for members of the UK public and other key stakeholder groups to participate. We recognise that taking part takes time, and we are committed to taking your comments seriously.
The aims of this public and stakeholder engagement
In this second round of public and stakeholder engagement we would like to hear from you in particular on:
1. our proposed short-list of waste management options;
2. our proposed process and criteria for assessing the short-listed options;
3. issues when combining waste management options; and
4. what matters to you about the way in which the options we will recommend should be implemented.
We also invite comments on this consultation process and on our work more generally. We welcome comments from those who have not contributed so far. We hope you will take part.
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04.04.2005 10:40
anarchoteapot
audio as mp3
04.04.2005 14:57
fish
bbc follow up
06.04.2005 04:14
There will be further consultations on the nuclear waste question
Proposals to send Britain's nuclear waste into space or to the bottom of the sea are impractical, a government advisory committee has warned.
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CORWM) recommends waste be either buried underground or stored temporarily in facilities above ground.
Nuclear power plants and weapons have left the UK with a radioactive legacy which presently has nowhere to go.
There will be yet more waste when nuclear stations are decommissioned.
Locations undecided
The committee has consulted experts and the public over the past 18 months, and has come up with four options which it considers viable.
They are: deep disposal, phased deep disposal, shallow burial of short-lived waste and interim storage.
Deep disposal is the process of permanently burying the waste between 300m (980ft) and 2km (1.2 miles) underground in an area of suitable geology; where the rocks act as a protective chamber.
Phased deep disposal is the same process except the waste will be retrievable.
Shallow burial of short-lived waste refers to burying waste that is radioactive only for a short time just below the surface.
Interim storage is a temporary management solution. Waste could be stored above the ground or just below the surface but it must be outside the biosphere.
There is no recommendation on where the sites should be located.
Alternatively, the waste could be put in secure storage above ground until better technologies become available.
These options will now go for further consultation.
But the committee excluded from its shortlist blasting waste into space, storing it on ice sheets or below the sea.
The total volume of nuclear waste in the UK is 470,000 cubic metres when conditioned and packaged - enough to fill the Albert Hall five times over.
This includes waste that will arise in the next 100 years from existing nuclear power stations and their decomissioning.
Debate re-opened
The final CORWM report will be submitted next summer to the UK government, as well as authorities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Committee chairman Gordon MacKerron commented: "We want to listen to everyone's thoughts - be they members of the public, environmental groups, local authorities, waste managers or regulators.
Barrels of nuclear waste were tipped into the sea in the 1950s and 60s
"Now we can start to focus on the best options and see which will work and which won't."
However, Friends of the Earth warned against making an irreversible decision on nuclear disposal.
Campaigner Roger Higman said: "The simple, most important thing we have been calling for is for whatever we do to be retrievable and reversible.
"The most radioactive waste is going to be high level in a thousand years' time so whatever happens, we have got a problem.
UK NUCLEAR WASTE VOLUMES
High-level waste - 2,000 cubic metres
Intermediate-level waste - 350,000 cubic metres
Low-level waste - 30,000 cubic metres
Spent fuel - 10,000 cubic metres
Plutonium - 4,300 cubic metres
Uranium - 75,000 cubic metres
"There is no safe way of disposing of nuclear waste and one of the most important lessons is not to create any more, which means we should not have nuclear power plants."
Nuclear waste comes from the process used to generate electricity via nuclear power, from making and maintaining nuclear weapons, and using nuclear technology in hospitals, laboratories and industry.
A recent study found that, on average, people in Britain live about 42km (26 miles) away from one of more than 30 radioactive waste sites, including power plants and military bases, in the UK.
An existing site at Drigg, in Cumbria, for example, allows only for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
Some scientists question the need for CORWM at all.
They say it is simply re-opening a debate which Britain has already been through, and which they believe many other countries have successfully resolved.
reposted from the bbc/technology page/ april 6/ 2005
fishboyAi