THE UK鈥檚 nuclear waste is not going to be fired into space, frozen into polar ice or dumped in the sea. After 18 months of debate, government advisers have instead decided that the best place for it is a hole in the ground.
Long-lived waste should be buried deep underground, either permanently, or so it can be retrieved if something goes wrong, concludes the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM). But it does not say where, and a shortlist of geologically suitable sites drawn up in the 1990s has not been made public. The waste may remain where it is 鈥� in containers near the surface 鈥� for an 鈥渋nterim鈥� period. The committee also suggests short-lived waste could be buried in shallow pits at up to 30 existing nuclear sites.
The CoRWM has rejected 11 other options for disposing of the 470,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste generated over the past 50 years. 鈥淣ow we can start to focus on the best options and see which will work and which will not,鈥� says its chairman, Gordon MacKerron.
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