“Not in my backyard” is a term normally used in conversations about proposed new housing or rail lines, but a version of it could soon be heard about one of the most dangerous materials on the planet.
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Sellafield, in Cumbria, is the “temporary home to the vast majority of the UK’s radioactive nuclear waste”, said the BBC, “as well as the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium”. It’s stuck there because no long-term, high-level waste facilities have been created to deal with it.
The “highly radioactive material” releases energy that can infiltrate and damage the cells in our bodies, Claire Corkhill, professor of radioactive waste management at the University of Bristol, said, and “it remains hazardous for 100,000 years”.
The permanent plan to handle the waste currently at Sellafield is to first build a designated 650ft-deep pit to store it. Although the contentious matter of its location has yet to be agreed, the facility will hold some of the 5 million tonnes of waste generated by nuclear power stations over the past seven decades. Then, in the second half of the century, a much deeper geological disposal site will be dug, which will hold the UK’s “most dangerous waste”, such as plutonium.
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The waste is the problem
Thats the point. Nuclear makes energy in a safe and clean way, but you can’t just exclude the waste problem from the discussion or dismiss it as “we’ll figure it out” as its so often done in this conversation.
Sure we are reusing some of it nowadays, but we still have tons globally that need to go somewhere
Yes, just to provide some detailed numbers regarding the UK from an article I posted recently in a similar community (article from May 2024):
At this point in time, nuclear “recycling” is a grift. The French nuclear recycling industry in particular is basically just a France-Siberia import/export business.