Archived press release

Death knell for thorp after nirex fiasco

24 July 1997

Today's report by the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) is expected to fall far short of the fundamental review of UK nuclear waste production that is now urgently required. The failure of Nirex to develop a safe disposal route for radioactive waste highlights the deep crisis at the centre of the nuclear industry and means the end of reprocessing in the UK, according to Friends of the Earth.

Twenty years ago the landmark Royal Commission report on nuclear power and the environment (The Flowers' Report) stated that: "There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived, highly radioactive waste for the indefinite future."

Friends of the Earth's defeat of Nirex means that no "safe containment" proposals exist and that the shaky economics of BNFL's Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) are more vulnerable than ever. The collapse of Nirex also means that BNFL's arrangements for disposing of foreign nuclear waste in the UK are in tatters - the waste will now have to be returned at enormous political and economic cost. THORP has also failed to operate as designed and that is why BNFL now plans to apply for permission to increase radioactive discharges.

Apart from the nuclear industry's inability to solve its own waste problems, it is also responsible for producing enormous stockpiles of deadly plutonium at BNFL's reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The Royal Commission concluded in 1976 that: "We should not rely for energy supply on a process that produces such a hazardous substance as plutonium unless there is no reasonable alternative."

Dr Patrick Green, Nuclear Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:
"The failure of the nuclear industry to solve the problem of radioactive waste means that reprocessing is now untenable. The Government should instruct the Royal Commission to hold a new review of nuclear waste production in the UK to end this absurd and dangerous situation"

ENDS

[Index]

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust