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RWMAC's Advice on: The Interim Report of the High Level Waste and Spent Fuel Disposal Research Strategy Project
Press Release:
15 December 1998
The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) today published its advice on the Interim Report of the Government's High Level Waste and Spent Fuel Disposal Research Strategy Project.
The High Level Waste and Spent Fuel Disposal Research Strategy Project was initiated in 1997, when the previous UK Government administration was not only committed to the underground disposal of intermediate and high level radioactive waste, but also envisaged two separate repositories for such wastes. The project itself aimed to identify the research strategy that would be necessary to develop an underground high level waste and spent fuel repository. The current Government will be reviewing its policy for the long-term management of the UK's radioactive wastes once an ongoing House of Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology enquiry into Nuclear Waste Management has been completed.
Despite these uncertainties in respect of future policy, the RWMAC nevertheless concludes that the project should be completed against its initial specification both to see whether the method of seeking to identify a research strategy is valid and because it believes that much of the output will be of value if a policy of eventual deep disposal is confirmed, irrespective of its precise nature. Changing the course of the project now, in light of any guess at the result of the policy review, risks a confused outcome, which in itself would be speculative and would provide no greater assurance of alignment with future policy.
Against this general background, the RWMAC advice provides a number of observations on, and pointers to, successful completion of the project. It also points out a number of particular areas where the project, or subsequent work based upon it, could be useful in deciding future policy following delivery of the Select Committee's report.
Speaking of the report the RWMAC Working Group chairman, responsible for the work, Professor Charles Curtis, said:-
"We need to find a means of managing the UK's high and intermediate level radioactive waste in the longer term that is compatible with the Government's policy of sustainable development. Regardless of one's views on how and why this waste has been produced, it is here today and must be dealt with. The RWMAC continues to believe that eventual deep disposal is likely to be the best option, but continuing research will be necessary to confirm that this can be done safely".
The High Level Waste and Spent Fuel Disposal Research Strategy Project is due to be completed in the spring of next year.
Notes to Editors
The independent Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee was set up in response to a recommendation of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's Sixth Report on Nuclear Power and the Environment. Its terms of reference are:
"To advise the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales on the technical and environmental implications of major issues concerning the development and implementation of an overall policy for all aspects of the management of civil radioactive waste, including research and development; and on any such matters referred to it by the Secretaries of State."
The Chairman of the RWMAC is Sir Gordon Beveridge, former President and Vice-Chancellor of the Queen's University of Belfast.
Radioactive waste is classified according to the amount of radioactivity it contains - high, intermediate or low. In the UK, high level waste exists only as the extremely active liquid waste by-product of the reprocessing of spent fuel, which must be solidified and then cooled through extended storage before being disposed of. Intermediate level waste, which is both liquid and solid, is less radioactive and does not generate significant heat. It comes from a variety of sources including nuclear facility operation, decommissioning and reprocessing. If it is to be disposed of, as opposed to stored, this must be deep underground within a suitable geological formation, since the radioactivity in some of the waste will take thousands of years to decay. In this regard, it differs from most low level solid radioactive waste which may be disposed of in engineered trenches much nearer the surface.
The Interim Report of the High Level Waste and Spent Fuel Disposal Research
Strategy Project can be obtained from a website run by the contractor
for technical aspects of the work, QuantiSci Limited:
www.quantisci.co.uk/profile/groups/qsgeosci.htm
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