Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/18/2015
The organization responsible for disposal of the United Kingdom’s high-level nuclear waste announced last week that it is seeking public input on its draft National Geological Screening (NGS) Guidance document, which will drive the nation’s search for a suitable repository location. The 12-week public comment period will enable the public to help shape the important factors the government considers when looking at a potential host community. “The 12 week consultation is an important step to ensuring that the public plays a central role in the government and RWM program of work to plan for, build, and operate a geological disposal facility (GDF) deep underground, providing a permanent solution for the country’s most radioactive waste,” Radioactive Waste Management Ltd. (RWM) said in a release. “The approach for this will be based on working with communities that are willing to participate in the siting process.”
The NGS document will divide the U.K. into 13 regions for review. As part of the process, the RWM will characterize each region through five distinct categories: rock type, rock structure, groundwater, natural processes such as seismicity, and resources such as mineral ores and coal.
“The results of those assessments, alongside international guidance, enable us to establish how the geological barrier contributes to long-term safety,” the draft NGS Guidance document says. “By providing existing, relevant information across the various regions of the UK we will have a national resource to help inform early discussions with communities about their potential suitability to host a [geologic disposal facility]. Whilst no national exercise will be able to definitively rule all areas as either suitable or unsuitable, it is possible that screening may lead to some areas being identified as unsuitable for hosting a [geologic disposal facility].”
The consultation will run until Dec. 4, 2015, the RWM said.
Previously, the United Kingdom had been in talks with Copeland in West Cumbria County to host a repository, but those stalled when the West Cumbria County Council voted against hosting the facility last year due to concerns with the geology.
The vote effectively vetoed the facility, sending the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) back to the beginning in terms of siting. The DECC had previously agreed that both the county of West Cumbria and the borough of Copeland, which voted to host the facility, had to both agree to site the repository.
In response, the Department of Energy and Climate Change released a white paper last year outlining the nation’s new approach to siting a geological disposal facility for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. The white paper aims to rejuvenate the nation’s location search after the planned site in West Cumbria was blocked. The new plan calls for more public volunteerism and a consent-based approach earlier in the process while also incorporating increased interaction between a potential community and Radioactive Waste Management. In an effort to improve on the failure at West Cumbria, the white paper attempts to keep the public informed on the siting process while gauging citizen opinion during the process as an indicator of the community’s willingness to host the facility.
