Government plans announced today, to deal with the rapidly increasing radioactive waste mountain could make the problem much worse Greenpeace warned. The creation of a new authority to bail out the nuclear industry from the £8 billion bill for cleaning up waste and decommissioning old power stations, will free the bankrupt British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to expand its nuclear business and create more deadly radioactive waste.
The Government announcement comes at the same time as an investigation by a leading analyst has revealed that BNFL is using money that is earmarked for clean up and decommissioning to prop up the rest of it failing business.
Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Pete Roche said,
"This is a piece of creative accountancy that the likes of Enron and WorldCom can only look on with awe. This move would transform BNFL from bankrupt business to having the appearance of a potential profit-maker. BNFL want to shake off its incompetent and negligent image and build more nuclear power stations. In the end this will create an even bigger legacy of radioactive waste for future generations to deal with."
By 2100 there will be half a million tonnes of radioactive waste in the UK. Some of it will be potentially dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. A recent alarming government report revealed that almost 90% of Britain's hazardous nuclear waste stockpile is so badly stored it could leak or explode at any time with devastating results. (1)
Greenpeace believes that the Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) proposal as it stands will:
- encourage the creation of radioactive waste
- effectively subsidise BNFL's expansion plans
- increase the burden on the taxpayer
- be reliant on BNFL, which has already proved itself to negligent when dealing with the legacy of waste it largely created.
The new LMA is intended to opening radioactive waste clean up to competitive tender. However BNFL does not have much in the way of competition in the loss-making field of nuclear waste management and has restructured itself in anticipation of the LMA's creation. Money from the clean up contracts BNFL wins will go straight into its nuclear power generation, reprocessing and fuel fabrication businesses, all of which will create a legacy of more radioactive waste to be dealt with and the taxpayer to pay for.
Pete Roche added,
"There is no reason why the Government should make it easier for BNFL to build new nuclear stations. If the Government was really serious about dealing with Britain's nuclear waste crisis, it would be announcing today an end to reprocessing at Sellafield, and the closure of Britain decrepit nuclear power stations."
Further information:
Contact:
Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255
Notes to editors:
1) 'Nuclear waste poses disaster threat', Observer, Sunday 30th June 2002
