Britain's big nuclear waste dump seeks a home

London, Aug 1: Britain will eventually have to bury its growing pile of nuclear waste deep underground but urgently needs somewhere to safely stash it in the meantime, a government-commissioned study said.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) called for a nationwide search for a suitable site for a vast underground nuclear waste dump.

''The UK has been creating radioactive waste for 50 years without any clear idea of what to do with it,'' CoRWM chairman Gordon MacKerron said in a statement yesterday.

Local communities interested in hosting the radioactive waste dump must be located in a geologically-suitable area of Britain and should be offered incentives, the CoRWM said.

Last month the government came out in favour of building new nuclear reactors. But the question of how to safely dispose of the estimated total 470,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste created by Britain's existing nuclear power plants hangs over any new nuclear build.

Because it might take decades to find and build an underground storage site, Britain needs ''robust interim storage'' able to safely store the waste for at least 100 years, the CoRWM said.

Interim storage sites should be particularly secure from attacks, it added.

The CoRWM was appointed in 2003 by the British government to look at the problem of nuclear waste disposal.

All but one of the UK's 23 nuclear reactors are to be closed down by 2023.

Reuters