Publication Laka-library:
Initial Recommendations on the Long Term Management of Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste Following Rejection of the UK Nirex Rock Characterisation Facility Planning Application (1998)
| Author | RWMAC |
| Date | 1998 |
| Classification | 2.05.4.10/43 (UNITED KINGDOM - WASTE - NIREX/NDA DECOMMISIONING) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
1. INTRODUCTION Dismissal of Nirex's appeal On 17 March 1997, the then Secretary of State, John Gummer, announced that he had dismissed United Kingdom Nirex Limited's (Nirex's) appeal against Cumbria County Council's refusal of planning permission for a Rock Characterisation Facility (RCF) at Longlands Farm, Gosforth, in Cumbria. Purpose of the RCF The United Kingdom (UK) currently has a national facility for disposal of low level radioactive waste (LLW) at Drigg in Cumbria, but has no national disposal facility for either intermediate level or high level radioactive waste (ILW and HLW). Further details on categories of radioactive waste, and information about their management, are provided at Annex 1. The purpose of the RCF, in effect an underground laboratory, was to obtain specific geological and hydrogeological data in order to characterise the underground conditions at the Longlands Farm site. This additional knowledge would then have been used to determine whether a safety case could be demonstrated for a deep repository at that site. The repository, if constructed, would have been used to dispose of ILW and some LLW. It follows, therefore, that a successful long-term outcome to the Nirex programme would have resulted in a national repository. The effect of the RCF planning application failure The dismissal of Nirex's appeal has effectively delayed any possibility of a repository being available in the UK by at least ten years, and perhaps into the third decade of the next century. Hence questions arise as to what are the root causes of failure to achieve a disposal facility; and what are the measures that should be taken to mitigate this loss of waste management capability.
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