Aug 01 - Independent, The; London (UK)

Britain's stockpile of 470,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste, enough to fill the Albert Hall five times, should be "entombed" in deep underground silos, a committee advised the Government yesterday.

But the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management warned Tony Blair that its report should not be regarded as a "green light" to build a new generation of 10 nuclear power plants.

Experts estimated it would cost at least pounds 10bn to build the silos between 200 metres and a kilometre under the ground.

The committee said that the waste dumps should not be imposed on communities. But it admitted that fears of nuclear catastrophes from accidents or terrorism could make it impossible to find areas willing to take the stockpiles. It urged the Government to immediately begin evaluating which parts of Britain would be unsuitable for underground nuclear silos, either because of the geology or nearby towns.

Ministers should adopt a system used in Finland and Sweden, which offers cash to encourage communities to volunteer to take the waste, the committee said.

Professor Gordon Mac-Kerron, the group chairman, denied it would amount to "buying them off". He said by allowing communities to veto the storage plans, the Government could gain their confidence.

Some committee members have privately said giving communities a veto over storage silos would create tensions over plans to streamline planning regulations.

The committee refused to name potential sites, but existing plants, such as Sellafield, where 92 per cent of Britain's highly radioactive waste is stored, are likely to top the Government's list. The committee considered a range of alternatives to underground storage, including the futuristic option of firing nuclear waste into space - an option deemed unsafe. Underground storage was seen by most as the safest way of combating the threat of terrorist attack, but the report said it could take 35 year s to build a silo, and 65 years to fill it.

Greenpeace warned last night there was "no solution to nuclear waste". It said that the UK should not create more nuclear waste by building a new generation of nuclear power stations.

A spokesman said: "Deep disposal is unacceptable. There is a lack of technical certainty about the reliability of the barriers used to contain the waste. The packaging is liable to corrode, the materials used to backfill the chambers may be porous, and the integrity of the surrounding geology may be undermined by excavating the repository." David Ball, of Middlesex University, who resigned from the committee, said its findings were based on opinions rather than science. "The CoRWM experience has been the antithesis of good decision making, having been infused throughout with political, commercial and self interests," he said.

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