No Strategy for New Build Radiological Waste

Posted: 23rd April 2022

Poll results: Nuclear waste disposal. According to the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the estimated cost of cleaning up the waste from 20th-century nuclear power plants currently stands at £131bn. What’s more, this figure does not include the construction of a geological disposal facility (GDF), a vast underground storage space for waste which was first suggested nearly 50 years ago but which has yet to even find a viable location. This Poll was carried out between March 29 -April 5, 2022 and received 360 votes. 67% said new nuclear should be rolled out as quickly as possible, According to the NDA, the spent fuel from this coming generation of plants will not be cool enough to be moved to a GDF– if one is ever built – for 140 years, further adding to the UK’s nuclear waste disposal problem. So not only is the UK struggling to deal with its existing waste on a mass scale, in seeking to meet its future energy demands and enable the net zero transition, it will create enormous amounts of high-level waste for which there is currently no strategy to deal with. The Engineer 5th April 2022  https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/poll-results-nuclear-waste-disposal