Filed for The Guardian, 07 June 1990
British Nuclear Fuel's chief executive, Neville Chamberlain, has suggested that high-level radioactive waste, which remains potentially lethal for millions of years, could end up being stored underground at Sellafield in Cumbria or at Dounreay in Caithness.
His remarks, reported in the latest edition of the Atomic Energy Authority's magazine, Atom, have provoked an unprecedented public row between BNF and the nuclear industry's waste agency Nirex.
"The article is misleading. It does not reflect Nirex's policy and responsibilities", said a NIREX spokesman yesterday. He accused Mr Chamberlain of being wrong on two counts.
High level waste would not be disposed of at the repository currently being investigated for either Dounreay or Sellafield as it was designed soley for low and intermediate level waste, the spokesman stressed. High level waste was not part of Nirex's remit and the chosen site was likely to be full up in 50 years time when high level waste would require disposal.
The Nirex spokesman also said that it was wrong to suggest that both Dounreay and Sellafield could end up being used. "This is a matter for BNF. We didn't write the article", he said.
Mr Chamberlain is quoted as saying in Atom that the next and final stage for the disposal of intermediate and high level wastes is a permanent underground storage repository.
"Just such a facility is being considered for construction under Sellafield itself; Nirex included the Sellafield area in its list of geologically suitable zones, and most of the nation's waste of this type will be treated at Sellafield", he says.
"Another possible site being investigated is Dounreay. Either or both of these sites we hope will be developed to accommodate the waste deep underground".
A spokesman for BNF admitted that Mr Chamberlain could have been "a little bit misleading". He was making, the spokesman suggested, "a very long term speculative suggestion" about high level waste.
Lorraine Mann, the convenor of Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, last night accused Nirex of "lieing and cheating again". She called for the whole nuclear waste disposal programme to be halted until the confusion over high level waste was resolved.
The ultimate destination of high level waste, 1,500 cubic metres of which is currently stored above ground in constantly cooled steel tanks at Sellafield, is unknown. Government policy is to solidify it into glass blocks and keep it above ground for at least the next 50 years before deciding on a final resting place.
Anti-dumping groups have always maintained - and the nuclear industry always denied - that high level waste would end up being dumped alongside the less dangerous intermediate and low level wastes for which possible repositories are under investigation at Sellafield and Dounreay.