Lakes nuclear dump?

Having read a bit on the website is west Cumbria really geologicaly suitable?

NIREX anyone? its all been discussed before and never been sorted. Wonder if it will be built before the stupid new railway thingy.

This is terrible news and must be stopped
I’d encourage anyone who loves riding in the lakes to sign the following petition

Thanks

Jon

OK some simple things.

Where do you think most of the waste already is?
What should we do with it?

Serious answers only?

Former resident of the area and worked for the big bad factory.

So if the repository doesn’t go near the majority of our waste we are all happy with transporting it across country by rail for a generation? After all rail accidents never happen, and rail lines pass nowhere near urban centres.

We make waste to generate power we all use, its time we took responsibility for immobilising it safely to protect future generations and produce a safe ultimate disposal route if nuclear does become a fuel of the future.

Where do you think most of the waste already is?

Sellafield and Drigg

What should we do with it?

Store it somewhere deep under ground in a geologically stable area

Serious answers only?

You have clearly been in Oz too long if you’re already ending statements with an upwards inflection, even through the medium of internet fora 😉

Shhhhhhhh!
Don’t tell them where it is – they’ll all stop visiting for fear of growing an extra arm…

So if the repository doesn’t go near the majority of our waste we are all happy with transporting it across country by rail for a generation? After all rail accidents never happen, and rail lines pass nowhere near urban centres.

We make waste to generate power we all use, its time we took responsibility for immobilising it safely to protect future generations and produce a safe ultimate disposal route if nuclear does become a fuel of the future.

Some yep, most is already made and being processed or in intermediate storage (somewhere very close to the lakes).
Accidents in the chemical factories on the Wirral or Teeside would probably be as bad but just accepted as not as scary.

Ennerdale is absolutely the most beautiful part of the lakes. You know, apart from the dirty great nuclear power station virtually in view of it.

But yeah, nuclear power. We can either stop using so much electricity or use nuclear power. It’s a very simple choice.

The Lakes do have a bit of an earthquake habit – not massive ones I grant you, but they happen and we have had some significant ones over the last few years. Throw in the addition of fracking going on in Morecambe Bay on the Lancashire side, and the suggestions that operations may be extended to the Cumbrian side and up the west coast, which are potentially linked to increased incidents of earth tremors this isn’t looking so clever.

Most of the people moving to the Lakes with money tend towards Windermere/Ambleside, not up the west coast. The transport links are not great, and not really ideal for transporting waste either. The main option is the train line that runs through several towns and villages, is unelectrified and really needing some significant investment.

Now if they were to offer us something in return… like the bridge between Barrow and Fleetwood to bring more investment into the west of Cumbria, and upgrade some of the roads to remove the dangerous bottlenecks, then perhaps we could see a fair deal. As it is we get dumped with the crud that no one else wants anywhere near them, in a location that is not the best and threatens some of the least developed areas of the National Park with so little benefit returned it is ridiculous.

Also – most of the jobs go to contractors who get to drive like knobbers over the fell roads at the end of shifts. Try being on Corney Fell 20 minutes after a shift change. So we don’t really get the jobs benefits either.

Ennerdale is absolutely the most beautiful part of the lakes. You know, apart from the dirty great nuclear power station virtually in view of it.

Yep. and the old mines in Cleator
Steel works in Workinton
The lovely sea views in Whitehaven
All that industrial coast line out there hang on thats outside the NP so nobody is that bothered.

Also – most of the jobs go to contractors who get to drive like knobbers over the fell roads at the end of shifts. Try being on Corney Fell 20 minutes after a shift change. So we don’t really get the jobs benefits either.

That is actually mostly the full time employee’s/knobbers too. As there are not as many houses as people working there some travel from places like Barrow etc.

The transport links are not great, and not really ideal for transporting waste either. The main option is the train line that runs through several towns and villages, is unelectrified and really needing some significant investment.

Fuel currently travels via that rail line from stations all over the country. However a large amount of it is already there and in the process of being treated and made ready for storage. With a repository elsewhere the stuff would have to be moved by rail out of there anyway.

Well said Cap Kronos

Does anyone remember a news story about 2 years ago about the UK processing other peoples nuclear waste??

Sellafield currently reprocesses nuclear waste for 34 other countries

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/647981.stm

So, yes, all us power sapping Brits need our electricity – so we need a good source of power (nuclear or renewable – i’m happy either way)

However, why on earth should the UK Government risk one of our most spectacular national parks to build even more storage for nuclear waste??

For the record, i grew up in the shadow of Sellafield and fully understand the shite that place has pumped out over the years and the damage its caused to people, families and the environment

Now you lot can’t rant as much as you want

Nimbyism aside we shouldn’t be putting it in bad ground, regardless of whether the locals are up for it or there’s a nearby nuclear plant. And there’s a lot of conflicting claims on that for the geology of the lakes granite (and even the positive claims seem uncertain)

Find the best place- put it there.

As the crow flies i stay 30 miles from sellafield/drigg across the solway, as others have said that place and (every other nuclear plant) has released enough shite over the years and been massively subsidised by our tax money to keep it afloat, the nuclear industry and their lobbyists in this country are Machiavellian in their deceit, shut them all down and use the subsidy money to give every single home it’s own solar panel system or electricity, air source heat pump for hot water and heating and industrial ground source heating where possible for housing estates, instead of having lights blazing in empty shop windows/office blocks etc at night pass new legislation that make it a criminal offence to waste electricity – how many town centres/retail parks are emblazoned with floodlights up and down the country – these burn a phenomenal amount of electricity, this may be taking it too far but i hope you get my point, there is a wanton waste of electricity in this country and i’m sure we could cut down by a massive amount if we really had the drive to do so.

Make nuclear redundant!

Does anyone remember a news story about 2 years ago about the UK processing other peoples nuclear waste??

Sellafield currently reprocesses nuclear waste for 34 other countries
Reprocessing is one of the core functions of the facilities at Sellafield. This external income helps to clean up the UK national waste. In effect other countries subsidise UK clean up.
Each country that contracted Sellafield to do this also accepted that all waste generated by these activities would be returned to them for long term storage.
More recently a proposal was accepted (I’m fairly sure it was sorted) known as Intermediate Level Waste Substitution. This broke the link between the “Exact” drum of Concrete or Glass encased waste that was produced by each campaign of reprocessing. It allowed the UK to return some of out High and Very High Level waste to these countries in exchange for keeping the same proportion of Intermediate level waste (easier to handle & store).

We are currently returning HLW to Japan.

Like many industries the Nuclear Industry had a past, same as coal, oil, chemical, steel etc. It’s also grown up over the years. Mining has left hundreds with disease and occupational injuries, asbestos has killed plenty and will carry on doing so and construction has claimed many lives and left others with major industries. The key is to learn from the past and move forward.

The majority of the waste that the UK needs to deal with is historic. It already exists, something needs to be done with it. The amount that ongoing nuclear generation will contribute is small.

The plan here to deal with waste is mostly about what is there.
http://www.sellafieldsites.com/solution/waste-management/ilw-treatment-and-storage/the-plan/
if we stopped generating today and accepted no more fuel this would still need doing.
There is no option to turn it off. The waste exists and it must be dealt with, it must then be stored. As above where should it be stored is a big question. However nowhere is not one of the answers.

As the crow flies i stay 30 miles from sellafield/drigg across the solway, as others have said that place and (every other nuclear plant) has released enough shite over the years and been massively subsidised by our tax money to keep it afloat, the nuclear industry and their lobbyists in this country are Machiavellian in their deceit, shut them all down and use the subsidy money to give every single home it’s own solar panel system or electricity, air source heat pump for hot water and heating and industrial ground source heating where possible for housing estates, instead of having lights blazing in empty shop windows/office blocks etc at night pass new legislation that make it a criminal offence to waste electricity – how many town centres/retail parks are emblazoned with floodlights up and down the country – these burn a phenomenal amount of electricity, this may be taking it too far but i hope you get my point, there is a wanton waste of electricity in this country and i’m sure we could cut down by a massive amount if we really had the drive to do so.

Make nuclear redundant!

Perhaps we could use the money to teach you what a full stop is?

Grammar aside, the pollution caused by the nuclear industry is miniscule compared to that caused by the fossil fuel industry. I suggest you look there first if you want to reduce pollution. You can have as many solar panels, heat pumps and insulation as you can shake a stick at, but the majority of the UK’s electricity is still generated by burning fossilised dead stuff, and that’s a bit Dickensian, really.

Rusty Spanner – Member
Lets store it under London.
Plenty of room there.
Or Surrey. S’nice and quiet.

See who complains then.

Foolish comment But not surprised.
Pretty shocked to single out the Lakedistrict
one for its beauty/environment and also a massive threat to the tourist trade too.
Just doesn’t make any sense

Just doesn’t make any sense

Aside from its proximity to the location of the vast majority of nuclear waste in the country, its geology, and the established nuclear industry already there, you mean?

If nuclear was a threat to the tourist industry they’d be long gone – there has been nuclear work on the site of Sellafield since the 40s

WTF there is nuclear in Cumbria, who would have thought it!!

Some light reading

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/
http://www.nda.gov.uk/

Perhaps reading some of this may enlighten people. Sellafield holds most of the UK’s nuclear waste and has done for a while. The National Low Level Waste repository is at Drigg just down the coast. You can seem most of this from the western fells.

It’s not new, it’s Cumbria the poor cousin of the Lake District that all the stuck up tourists don’t visit.

Yes that will be it – I mean apart from that everyone would be desperate for one of those near them

Only two – that seems remarkably low for all of Sweden – its a geology problem isn’t it rather than a popularity/risk thing I assume

Go look up the proposal. The geology must be right for a site full stop. Also most proposal like this get whittled down to a shortlist of 2 or 3 options – surely you don’t seriously think there are only 2 places to store waste there!!!

After the technical considerations are met yes it does become a popularity thing. People are aware of the dramatised risk of nuclear, and after these towns saw the “real” risk i.e. proper statistically verified figures they were falling over each other to win the facility to their area to secure all the employment benefits etc etc.

As others have said this stuff must go somewhere and to shout sacrilege at it being built at the EDGE of the lakes is pretty poor IMO. Most folk would not even know it was there, yet alone pass round by that side of the lakes. The fact the geology is correct is the factor determining a site, and its proximity to sellafield, our waste processing plant makes total sense.

People should be aware that a nuclear dump has just been created in Dundee

People should be aware that a nuclear dump has just been created in Dundee

Well, I suppose there’s no risk of it affecting tourism there 😉

Oh I don’t know, I’m not far from RSS Discovery.

I’ll open the window and see which way the winds blowing.

Yes lets store it some where ugly!

The need for a long term nuclear repository is as old as the hills they want to store it in. The fact that since the advent of the nuclear industry the search for the perfect geological formation to safely store it has proved fruitless means that they’ve had to scale back the ideals for what level of assurance can be given But its a bit late now the horse has already bolted to change our minds now.

I’m typing this not far from a nuclear power station that generates +2,000MKe at Heysham using a computer and drinking a nice hot cuppa.

I mean if it is that safe and clean what is the problem with putting it near London?

1) there’s lots of stuff under London already

2) it’s not geologically appropriate

3) land is expensive

4) labour is expensive

5) construction would disrupt more than two goats

As others have said this stuff must go somewhere and to shout sacrilege at it being built at the EDGE of the lakes is pretty poor IMO. Most folk would not even know it was there, yet alone pass round by that side of the lakes.

If they were building it at Sellafield then I doubt there would be much of a problem.

Calling halfway up Ennerdale the ‘the edge’ of the Lakes is stretching it a bit. I don’t care/mind about the stuff once it’s underground, what I am vehemently opposed is industrial clutter – the towers that would be needed above the shafts, the new roads on Ennerdale Fell – all affecting one of the most wonderful places in this country.

Sure, the hand of man can already be seen on Ennerdale, and perhaps it would be even better without the trees and the lake, but it lifts my heart when I hit the High Stile ridge or reach Looking Stead and see it.

Haystacks and the High Stile Ridge

(The panorama titled ‘Looking into Ennerdale from High Crag’ about 2/3rds of the way down. The most likely location for the site would be on the green strip just before the lake).

As this panorama clearly shows, the location of any site at Gillerthwaite would be clearly seen from both the Mosedale ridge and the High Stile ridge. It would be in a different league to the distant sprawl of Sellafield or the towns you can see from the Western Lakes.

I am told more suitable geological locations exist, but this one is favoured, perhaps because local populations are low, and this makes the council more easily rolled over.

I think it’s crazy that they’re even considering using Ennerdale as a nuclear waste dump given the history of aviation incidents that have taken place. Imagine if a plane crashed into a nuke stockpile! Unbelievable!

😆

Nukes are the power of the future. Alarmist NGOs have shrieked until it’s regulated to the point of farce – see here for a run down of the real severity of a load of “secret” “radioactive” leaks reported by a cynical non-journalist. man admits responsibilty for bases biggest ever radioactive leak. We already saw that those pools are safe to SWIM in FFS!

All that “waste” is only waste in the context of an old reactor designed for producing bombs with a by product of electricity. To a modern reactor it’s called “fuel”. ALL of it. How useful and abundant is nuclear energy? Another xkcd for ya here.[/url]

There’s more energy in the uranium in coal than the coal in coal. And coal, coal dust, and ash isn’t even considered nuclear waste.

Another xkcd for ya here.

More energy density per kilo in fat than coal? We should just feed half of Burnley into a power station – we’d be sorted for years!

Coal dust, now there’s a horrible thing

I don’t care/mind about the stuff once it’s underground, what I am vehemently opposed is industrial clutter – the towers that would be needed above the shafts, the new roads on Ennerdale Fell – all affecting one of the most wonderful places in this country.

Wasn’t the plan to dig a tunnel from Sellafield? Sure, there may be some short-term survey infrastructure there, but why would it need a shaft?

Anyway, I do find it slightly bizarre that some people are so vehemently opposed to ‘industrial clutter’, when what makes up a lot of the lake district’s views is another primary industry’s clutter – farm machinery, fences, sheds etc.

when what makes up a lot of the lake district’s views is another primary industry’s clutter – farm machinery, fences, sheds etc.

I agree with you there, but that’s mostly found scattered around the more populated valleys and below a certain altitude. Ennerdale has significantly less agricultural clutter.

While, hopefully, you’d be right about the shaft, in which case I would have zero objection, as the main facility would be above ground at Sellafield, this hasn’t been finalised in a proposal, and there may be a need for a multiple facilities closer to the site (Source – official MRWS report).

The pdf link I posted earlier is from someone opposed to the project, and obviously needs to be taken in that vein, but I don’t think that a site in Ennerdale is out of the question, and if it were to go ahead, his view of its impact seems pretty balanced.

I guess we need to look critically at the arguments of those for and against, including any claims for jobs likely to be created.

I guess we need to look critically at the arguments of those for and against, including any claims for jobs likely to be created.

Absolutely, something I’m sure 38 degrees have done as I tried to find any useful info on their site and had to give up. Seems like a rebrand of CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment Relatively Everything)

I would encourage people to take a read of the NDA site and look what is where. How much of this stuff is already in Cumbria etc. The difference of being in a National Park is interesting in some ways, but as I used to cross the boundary 4-5 times on the way to work I’d find it hard to tell you what was in or out.

Also all the tourists that would avoid the area didn’t really ever go there, Ennerdale and that side is mostly a locals only area as it’s too far and takes too long for all these tourists to get there.

I’m not saying rip up the fells but just as above read the evidence not the propaganda.

I think it’s certainly no bad thing that the vocal campaigners are bringing the whole thing under public scrutiny.

If it makes those designing an eventual scheme (assuming it turns out to be geologically suitable) more mindful of avoiding a surface site in Ennerdale, that’s a major plus.

The Lakes is a tiny place. If you can walk fast, you can tick every single decent summit in 24 hours. But in my view, this sort of industrial development within the valleys leading up to the central hub is out of the question.

Falls under the same heading as “recycling” IMHO, i.e. totally missing the point…… its not how you recycle that counts, its consumption of finite resources in an unnecessary and wasteful way thats the problem. This issue is much the same in that its a pitiful after thought to an expensive and wasteful process that starts with massive consumption and the waste of resources, and ends with lets chuck the outcome into landfill and ignore it as an issue.

why worry?

Not sure what you’re getting at there Graham. It’s things like this that need shutting down if we’re concerned about finite resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connah’s_Quay_Power_Station