British nuclear heritage

The management of the UK nuclear power programme's economic and environmental legacy is in a crisis dominated by five serious problems; the economic, environmental and waste management justifications offered by British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) for the reprocessing have been discredited, and the environmental and health impacts of the Sellafield facility are a cause for increasing concern; UK Nirex Ltd, the body to which the nuclear industry has delegated the task of establishing a 'disposal' route for low and intermediate-level nuclear waste, has failed to do so; credible long-term strategies have yet to be formulated for decommissioning any of the UK's nuclear power stations or for the long-term management of the high-level nuclear waste arising from reprocessing; all but one of the seven operating Magnox stations are beyond their 25-year design life, and the UK's plutonium stockpile now stands at about 30 tonnes and, if the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) is allowed to open, will be 65 tonnes by 2005. Recommendations for more effective management policies for radioactive wastes are made. (author)