How we’re making progress towards building a geological disposal facility for nuclear waste in the UK
Corhyn Parr, CEO
| Nuclear Waste Services
Making our most hazardous radioactive waste permanently safe, sooner
Today, nuclear power is viewed by the UK Government as essential to the low-carbon energy mix. Currently it provides around 15 per cent of the nation’s electricity and it will continue to be a vital part of our energy supply in the future.
We have had a long and pioneering history of nuclear energy use in the UK. We led the world in opening the first nuclear power station to deliver electricity in commercial quantities in the 1950s, and since then nuclear energy has provided power for a range of industries.
But as a result, we’ve got a legacy of higher-activity radioactive waste that has to be managed, and eventually disposed of, safely and securely. Currently this waste is safely housed in around 20 above-ground facilities across the country – this is not sustainable as these facilities need to be maintained and replaced for many thousands of years.
UK Government policy is to establish a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) for the permanent disposal of the country’s most hazardous nuclear waste. This globally accepted solution, will in time remove the need for any kind of human intervention in handling nuclear waste.
Our task at Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), as part of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group, is to deliver this policy. A GDF will only be built where there is both a suitable site and a willing host community, so there are many steps we need to take before we achieve our ultimate goal.
This legacy waste is ours as a country, we’ve all benefited from the use of nuclear energy, so we need to find a solution together.
The need for a GDF
The key principles behind geological disposal involve isolating the radioactive waste from the surface; and containing it deep underground until most of the hazard has decayed removing the need for human intervention or management. A GDF needs to be built between 200 and 1,000 metres underground or beneath the seabed, depending on the local geology. A combination of engineered and natural barriers will then work together to ensure the waste remains secure for many thousands of years.
Geological disposal is internationally accepted as the only viable solution for the long term management of the most hazardous radioactive waste. Construction began in 2015 in Finland on the world’s first GDF for spent nuclear fuel, while France – which relies on nuclear power for around 70% of its electricity – and Sweden, are each on track to build GDFs in the next decade.
In each case, the timeframes are necessarily long term – and the same is true for us with a GDF expected to be available to for first waste emplacement in the 2050s.
But there’s still a long way to go before construction can begin. We first need to ensure two prime conditions are met: a suitable site and a willing host community.
Giving communities a voice
While the development of a GDF will bring huge benefits to the environment by providing a site for the safe, permanent disposal of nuclear waste, it will also bring benefits to the local host community. Being a host site could have a transformational effect on the community selected, more than 4,000 jobs could be created in the first 25 years of the project. The facility will then be active for around 175 years before being closed, with the potential for employing upwards of 2,000 people in any given year during its lifetime.
Formation of a Community Partnership also triggers the availability of up to £1million per year of Community Investment Funding (CIF). This funding is available for projects and initiatives that support economic development opportunities, improve community well-being, or enhance the local environment (including cultural and natural heritage).
We’re currently in conversation with three communities about the potential to host a GDF: two in Cumbria and one in Lincolnshire. Community Partnerships have formed in these areas to help facilitate the conversation between NWS and the local community. These communities have only committed to having a conversation and the existence of a Community Partnership is in no way an indication that a community is willing to host a GDF.
Once the conversation has progressed to the point at which the local community has had ample opportunity to raise questions and concerns and to find out what a GDF could mean for them, a Test of Public Support (ToPS) will take place to decide whether the community is indeed “willing”.
The precise timing of the ToPS is for the relevant principal local authority to decide and they also have the power to withdraw their community at any point during the process up to the time that a ToPS takes place. If the ToPS is negative, then the process ends in that community. If it is positive, NWS may then proceed with statutory licensing, environmental permitting and planning permission application processes to build a GDF.
The path forward
Currently, a range of studies and surveys are progressing and will help us identify locations for further investigative work. The areas that remain in the process all have potential to host a GDF, and we’ll keep our stakeholders and communities updated on our comprehensive programme of site evaluations. We are working towards a decision on the first community to progress to deep borehole investigation, and receive increased community investment of up to £2.5million per year, by December 2025.
While establishing a GDF is an immense undertaking, and though the timeframes are necessarily long, tangible progress is being made.
At NWS, we will continue to engage with the three existing Community Partnerships, with the door open to new communities to join the siting process, while also working closely with the rest of the NDA Group and DESNZ, our sponsoring Government Department, to ensure the process remains on track.
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