Archived press release

Foe reveals secret nuclear import plan

17 May 1999

Information obtained by Friends of the Earth show that British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL)is in top secret talks with a group of US nuclear utilities to import massive amounts of spent nuclear fuel to Britain.

The information, revealed for the first time on today's BBC "Newsnight" programme, shows that the planned deal with US nuclear giant Yankee (Yankee Atomic Electric, Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power, and Maine Yankee Atomic Power) could bring 2400 spent nuclear fuel elements to Sellafield.

BNFL has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep these discussions secret. BNFL Commercial Manager Mr Ian Taylor instructed the Yankee group to doctor any documents left with the US Department of Energy so as not to refer to BNFL by name or to any specific cask names.

The news will be a major embarrassment to the Government and particularly to Energy Minister John Battle. On 8th July 1998 he wrote to Tim Collins, Conservative MP, stating:"BNFL has made clear publicly that American nuclear wastes will be dealt with in the United States." Yet, BNFL's letters to its US clients show it was already negotiating to bring nuclear waste to Britain.

In theory, nuclear waste produced by reprocessing at the Sellafield THORP plant is meant to be returned to its country of origin. In practice, apart from tiny test amounts, this has never happened. The main motive for foreign utilities to export their spent nuclear fuel to Britain is to shift or defer their problems in managing nuclear waste. No country in the world has yet built an underground nuclear waste repository capable of handling high level waste(HLW) or spent nuclear fuel. Foreign utilities and Governments may care little whether any reprocessing of spent fuel ever takes place at all. What matters to them is only that nuclear waste is removed from their soil to be dealt with somewhere else.

The information leaked to FOE shows that the primary purpose of bringing the spent fuel to Britain is to solve the US utilities nuclear waste crisis. The imported fuel is unlikely ever to be reprocessed at all. BNFL told its US clients that it could clear the deal with the US Department of Energy (DOE) because "the approach is only a spent fuel management tool,

and not for the purpose of separating Pu [plutonium] for future use."

British Government policy is that the use of reprocessing in the UK by foreign utilities to shift or defer their problems with dealing with nuclear waste is absolutely forbidden.According to the Government's 1995 White Paper Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy such sham reprocessing is wrong because it discourages countries from taking responsibility for the nuclear waste they produce [1].

Importing US nuclear waste makes no sense when the UK already has Europe's worst nuclear waste crisis and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has warned that storage at Sellafield is inadequate and dangerous. Existing foreign reprocessing contracts will result in a 30% increase in intermediate nuclear waste stored at Sellafield. If BNFL now gets all the contracts it is seeking this will increase to between 40 and 50%.

The FOE revelations will strengthen calls for key recommendations from the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) to be given the force of law. RWMAC has recommended that " all decisions about movements of radioactive materials into the United Kingdom must be subjected to tests" ensure that the prime purpose of reprocessing is the re-cycling of plutonium and uranium and not to shift foreign utilities nuclear waste crisis to Britain are given the force of law [2].

Director of Friends of the Earth, Charles Secrett, said today:

"The information leaked to Friends of the Earth reveal that BNFL has been lying to both the US and UK Governments in order to shore up its bankrupt nuclear reprocessing business. BNFL has been secretly negotiating with US energy utilities to import nuclear waste into the UK, even though this is against Government policy and breaks company assurances to Parliament and the public that it would not do so. Tony Blair must act now to stop BNFL turning Britain into a nuclear waste dump for other countries. The BNFL senior management who set up the deal should resign at once, or be fired."

NOTES TO EDITORS

[1]Radioactive Waste Management Policy, 1995 White Paper, p. 40.
[2]Report on the Import and Export of Radioactive Waste, RWMAC, 1997, p.2.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust