Bury your own nuclear waste, Executive told

Corrections and clarifications to the following story

Contrary to the report 'Bury your own nuclear waste, Executive told', we wish to make it clear that it is the UK's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) which is currently consulting on the long-term management of radioactive waste, not the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), which submitted its final recommendations to Defra and the devolved administrations almost a year ago. The current consultation being conducted by Defra - with which the Scottish Executive has refused to co-operate - is to seek opinions on how decisions on the siting of radioactive waste repositories should be taken, in line with CoRWM's recommendations. The consultation is not concerned with nuclear new build and CoRWM's final recommendations explicitly state that the committee takes no position on the desirability or otherwise of nuclear new build, believing that such decisions should be subject to their own assessment process to consider the social, political and ethical issues of deliberately creating new nuclear wastes.

SCOTLAND has been warned that it will have to dispose of its own nuclear waste after pulling out of UK-wide talks on dealing with the highly radioactive material.

Local authorities at the Sellafield nuclear-processing plant in Cumbria say they may refuse permission for shipments and storage of spent fuel rods from north of the Border.

They have accused Scottish ministers of being "parochial" and "entrenched" after the Executive said it would no longer work with a UK government committee which is examining how to store nuclear waste in the long term.

The nuclear waste is a mixture of radioactive metals, which together have a half-life of about 1,000 years - the time taken for the radioactivity to fall by 50%. After that period, although the substances are still radioactive, they are much less toxic. However, the waste needs to be stored and monitored for centuries afterwards.

The Scottish Executive last week pulled out of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) talks, which are focusing on burying waste deep underground in shafts. The outline plans include a deep store somewhere in Scotland. This could be available for waste of particular grades from both sides of the Border.

But the SNP Executive is opposed to new nuclear power north of the Border and insiders believe the CoRWM talks are aimed at justifying the case for building more nuclear plants in addition to dealing with waste.

Scotland's two operational nuclear power plants send hundreds of tonnes of spent fuel rods south of the Border to Sellafield each year. There they are reprocessed to be used in other parts of the nuclear industry and each rod produces a pellet of waste about an inch long which is encased in glass.

Currently , the waste from the fuel rods is being held at Sellafield pending a longer-term solution to the question of where to put it. One of the options for long-term storage of such waste is to keep it at Sellafield in a deep shaft.

But council leaders in the area have warned they may veto plans for waste from Scottish rods to be stored in the area.

Although they have no formal powers to block future plans by a UK government to allow waste to be stored in the area, they must be consulted by law.

Ministers have made it clear they would not force a repository to be built in an area where the local authority was opposed to it, and they have also accepted the right of councils to limit the amount of waste they receive and where it comes from.

Timothy Heslop, the executive member on Cumbria County Council for economic regeneration and nuclear issues, said: "If the Scots are taking the view that they are, then let them accept that their waste is not coming across the Border." He added that Cumbria will debate its position after the summer break, but that there was a cross-party consensus among both the Tory-Lib Dem coalition on the council and the Labour opposition that the Scottish waste should not be allowed to remain long term.

Tim Knowles, the Labour nuclear spokesman at Cumbria, said: "Given that Scotland has taken against nuclear across the board, I'm quite happy for Scotland to look after their own nuclear waste. The CoRWM was actually a very good consultation. If the Scottish position wasn't so entrenched then there would be room for some movement."

An insider added: "It would work like this: the minister will get up and announce where the repository is to be built, and a local MP - primed by both the council and the minister - will ask whether Scottish waste will be stored at the repository. Minister replies, no, that the Scots have decided to go their own way and do their own thing and they can store their own waste."

The Executive said it was justified in pulling out of the talks and would remain in contact with the rest of the UK on the issue of nuclear waste even if it no longer had a role in CoRWM.

A spokesman said: "The Scottish government will of course continue to work closely with the UK government and other devolved administrations on radioactive waste policy, but we believe that a geological repository in Scotland is not the right way forward."