National policy

A key objective in decommissioning Dounreay by 2025 is to get all the intermediate-level waste into a condition that makes it safe for long-term storage or disposal pending a national management strategy for such waste.

This is already happening for some of the waste – the raffinate from research reactor fuel being conditioned through the cementation plant. New facilities will be built, operated and decommissioned between now and 2025 to condition the rest of the waste.

By 2025, all this waste will be conditioned in steel drums or boxes and held securely in above-ground stores at the site.

These stores have a design life of 100 years. But the waste itself remains a hazard for thousands of years, so a long-term strategy is needed for its management.

At a UK level, successive governments have sought to develop a policy for the long-term management of the most hazardous radioactive wastes since the 1976 Flowers Report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

Initially, the UK Atomic Energy Authority was asked to identify a number of sites as being suitable for the disposal of such waste in the late 1970s and undertook test-drilling. A number of changes happened at the start of the 1980s, however. The UKAEA programme was abandoned, the Government acceded to the London Dumping Convention that stopped the disposal of intermediate-level waste at sea and a new organisation called Nirex was established by Government to implement a new waste disposal strategy.

A number of sites were identified by Nirex as being suitable for radioactive waste disposal but this programme was halted by Government in 1987 and a new approach adopted by Nirex. This led to two sites – Dounreay and Sellafield – being short-listed for investigation at the beginning of the 1990s for a deep geological disposal of intermediate-level waste.

Sellafield was selected for detailed investigation but this programme was halted by Government in 1997.

The Scotland Act that established the Scottish Parliament in 1999 devolved responsibility for the disposal of radioactive waste in Scotland.

In 2003, following public consultation by the UK Government and devolved administrations, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management was formed to review the options and make recommendations on a way forward that would command greater public support for a long-term radioactive waste strategy in the UK.

In 2006, CoRWM recommended deep geological disposal of the UK’s higher-activity waste, with a new partnership approach with communities about the choice of location for a national disposal site.

In 2007, following elections to the Scottish Parliament, the new Scottish Government announced it did not support geological disposal of intermediate-level waste. Instead, this waste in Scotland should be stored “near site, near surface”

Discussions are now taking place between the Scottish Government and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority about the way forward for the long-term management of intermediate-level waste in Scotland.

The change in policy does not affect the short-term need to condition the waste at Dounreay, nor does it change the need for interim storage facilities at the site beyond the completion of the site decommissioning programme. Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is focussed in delivering both to the NDA by 2025.

In January 2010, the Scottish Government launched public consultation about its policy for the storage and disposal of higher activity waste in Scotland. Click here to learn more.
 

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