Monday 16th May saw the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management consulting in Thornbury. The meeting room in the Chantry was packed with over 60 people. The majority of comments appeared to come from people opposed to nuclear power, and very concerned about waste management.

“This is a discussion of how a murderer disposes of the body, rather than how to stop the murderer” was perhaps the most memorable quote of the evening. Indeed!

There was concern that the consultation could be manipulated by politicians as support for further nuclear power station building.

“Short lived waste can last anything up to 300 years” according to the committee! Concern was raised over the lack of knowledge of how much waste is likely to be produced, particularly from reprocessing activities at Thorpe (where volume of reprocessed waste is many times greater than the original waste)

The shortlist of options was:

• long-term interim storage (i.e. look after it till we think, of something better)
• deep geological disposal (but perhaps not out of reach of our water supplies…)
• phased deep geological disposal (more accessible version of the above)
• Near-surface disposal (short-lived waste only)
• see CoRWM website for further info.

The very presence of this committee indicates that after 50 years of nuclear development we still don't know what to do with the waste! To their credit, CoRWM members came across very well: impartial and extremely open to consultation and all opinions. If all public consultations were done to this quality, then British democracy would be truly marvellous.

For a tongue-in-cheek cartoon on the procedings, click the thumbnail (127KB)

Jon B

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