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Scotland’s problem of radioactive old nuclear submarines

Argyll, redundant submarines and nuclear waste disposal forargyll.com 2nd November, 2009 Much of the Scottish Media has spent the last two days headlining the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) intention to dump nuclear waste from redundant nuclear submarines in up to 5 locations in Scotland…….

In fact there are 2 sites in Argyll under consideration for this purpose: Faslane and Coulport. The other 3 Scottish locations are Rosyth in Fife, Doonreay in Caithness and Hunterston in Ayr.

There are very real issues to do with the disposal of nuclear waste and other material contaminated by radioactivity. These issues, however, are not those causing concern at the moment. For that reason they are currently below the level of public awareness – a potentially damaging situation.

The Immediate problem. When nuclear submarines are decommissioned, their spent nuclear fuel – classified as high level waste – is removed and taken to secure storage on the site of the nuclear processing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria.

The area of the submarine around its reactor core remains radioactive, classified as intermediate level waste.

It is this material for which the MoD is currently concerned to find disposal sites.

The disposal of redundant nuclear submarines has long been a known problem and has not yet been fully resolved. Even breaking these ships carries issues not yet adequately addressed.

The pressure is mounting simply because of their continuing presence in lay up in two locations – Rosyth in Fife and Devonport in the south of England. Their significant ongoing deterioration brings a potential environmental hazard because of the irradiated intermediate-level nuclear waste in the area around the reactor core of each ship……………

So what are the issues?

There are three: the disposal of irradiated material remaining on redundant submarines; their ship breaking; and the really big issue – sites for the final disposal of nuclear waste.

The imperative is to watch for and resist moves to locate deep burial sites for nuclear waste disposal on Scotland’s land or marine territory.

Such solutions are untested, pragmatic, short-term responses to a very profound problem. They will do nothing other than get the stuff out of sight and, in political terms, out of mind. We would be – literally and irresponsibly – burying timebombs.

Argyll News: MoD, Argyll, redundant submarines and nuclear waste disposal :Argyll,Scotland,ship breaking,deep burial, | For Argyll

November 4, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, UK, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radioactive, wastes