"Dealing with all the waste, dismantling hundreds of buildings and facilities, and building a geological disposal facility (GDF), to dispose of the most radioactive nuclear waste, will take decades."
"Generating nuclear power today will not leave future generations with the challenges we’re trying to overcome. Nuclear waste produced today is carefully managed, and following in the footsteps of other countries, a GDF will provide us with a safe way of disposing of the most hazardous radioactive waste, permanently in England and Wales. Scotland has a distinct policy for higher activity radioactive waste which sets out a near site, near surface approach."
"The NDA’s strategy has been to bring the reprocessing programme to an end. The THORP reprocessing plant and the Magnox reprocessing plant have now closed. All remaining spent fuel will be safely stored until a permanent solution for disposal is available. The strategy for all remaining spent fuels is to place them in an interim store pending a future decision on whether to classify them as waste for disposal in a GDF. For planning purposes, we assume that all the remaining spent fuels will be disposed of in a GDF."
THORP Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
Holy feck.
In the past politicians would hand wave away the issues by saying the super dooper THORP plant and 'new' vitrification process would take care of it.
Now they seem to have stopped even pretending there is a solution.
They are admitting the only plan is to stuff all nuclear waste underground for future generations to deal with.
Thanks for that. I'm not sure any of the storage methods you outline have sufficient capacity in today's world. You might like to listen to https://open.spotify.com/episode/0fkLY8hfkrk5kUZdR3kLgs?si=01881ea3584b467d to get a more robust view of grid reliability. Oh and where £2Bn would be a great help worldwide.
A quick web search finds this official government report:
"
Corporate report
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: Business Plan 2025 to 2028
Published 5 June 2025
"
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-decommissioning-authority-business-plan-2025-to-2028/nuclear-decommissioning-authority-business-plan-2025-to-2028
"Dealing with all the waste, dismantling hundreds of buildings and facilities, and building a geological disposal facility (GDF), to dispose of the most radioactive nuclear waste, will take decades."
"Generating nuclear power today will not leave future generations with the challenges we’re trying to overcome. Nuclear waste produced today is carefully managed, and following in the footsteps of other countries, a GDF will provide us with a safe way of disposing of the most hazardous radioactive waste, permanently in England and Wales. Scotland has a distinct policy for higher activity radioactive waste which sets out a near site, near surface approach."
"The NDA’s strategy has been to bring the reprocessing programme to an end. The THORP reprocessing plant and the Magnox reprocessing plant have now closed. All remaining spent fuel will be safely stored until a permanent solution for disposal is available. The strategy for all remaining spent fuels is to place them in an interim store pending a future decision on whether to classify them as waste for disposal in a GDF. For planning purposes, we assume that all the remaining spent fuels will be disposed of in a GDF."
THORP Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
Holy feck.
In the past politicians would hand wave away the issues by saying the super dooper THORP plant and 'new' vitrification process would take care of it.
Now they seem to have stopped even pretending there is a solution.
They are admitting the only plan is to stuff all nuclear waste underground for future generations to deal with.
It is not that it cannot be stored it is that the cost is high and would require more imports
There are several problems with nuclear but Britain NEEDS NUCLEAR NOW
Better to ensure it is
PUBLICLY OWNED
HIGHLY REGULATED AND WELL FUNDED
USES BRITISH WORKERS
than just trying to blanket oppose it
Nuclear makes good well paying jobs and reduces CARBON EMISSIONS
Hi Leah,
Thanks for that. I'm not sure any of the storage methods you outline have sufficient capacity in today's world. You might like to listen to https://open.spotify.com/episode/0fkLY8hfkrk5kUZdR3kLgs?si=01881ea3584b467d to get a more robust view of grid reliability. Oh and where £2Bn would be a great help worldwide.
Hint! It ain't in an SMR!