from Sunday Herald, 09 February 2014
A Ministry of Defence (MoD) plan to start dismantling seven defunct nuclear submarines at Rosyth in Fife will produce over 3,600 tonnes of radioactive waste – but no-one knows where it will all end up.
Babcock, the British multinational than runs Rosyth dockyard for the MoD, has disclosed how much contaminated metal and equipment will be created when it takes apart the old reactor-driven submarines that have been berthed near the Firth of Forth since the 1990s.
But agreement on where hundreds of tonnes of the most radioactive waste will be stored is years away, prompting accusations that the company has “jumped the gun”. And although UK ministers have said the waste will not remain at Rosyth, one expert fears it will - posing a “ticklish” problem should Scotland vote for independence.
The MoD has been trying to decide for more than a decade what to do with the seven submarines tied up at Rosyth, as well as others at Devonport on the south coast of England. Its latest plan is to dismantle them at the two dockyards, and then move waste to stores elsewhere.
But the MoD hasn’t yet announced the shortlist of potential sites for the most radioactive waste. Due later this month, the list will comprise five sites, expected to include the nuclear complexes at Sellafield in Cumbria, Aldermaston in Berkshire and possibly Hunterston in North Ayrshire.
Despite this, Babcock has launched its bid to start dismantling the submarines by submitting an environmental impact assessment to the UK government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation. It reveals that the reactor compartment of each submarine will produce 520 tonnes of radioactive waste, making a total of 3,640 tonnes for all seven boats.
More than 500 tonnes of the total is likely to be defined as “intermediate level”, which at the moment has nowhere to go. The rest will be disposed of as low-level waste to a dump at Drigg in Cumbria or recycled because its contamination is deemed to fall below the regulatory threshold.
Babcock’s environmental assessment also says that Rosyth is vulnerable to flooding and “an extreme event, such as a storm surge”. But it argues that the dangers are low because it will mitigate the impacts by “being prepared and making safe”.
Thomas Docherty, the Labour MP for Dunfermline and west Fife, condemned Babcock’s approach as “completely nuts”. Not a single blowtorch should be taken to the submarines until planning permission had been given for a waste store, he argued - and that would probably take until the end of the decade.
“Babcock has jumped the gun. I can’t understand why they are doing this,” he said. The local community only discovered the company’s move from a small ad in the local paper.
The independent nuclear consultant, John Large, warned that dismantling the submarines would be trickier than Babcock thought because of how badly they were contaminated. “In my opinion the radioactive waste arisings are likely to stay at the site of generation, that is Rosyth,” he said.
The packages of waste created were liable to be very large and difficult to transport, and there was a national policy to store waste where it was generated. “This will be a ticklish problem for the Scots alone when independence is delivered,” he said.
Jane Tallents from Nuclear Submarine Forum, which brings together concerned local communities, called on the MoD to explain why Babcock was “in a rush” to start dismantling. The Rosyth SNP councillor, Douglas Chapman, said local residents favoured a “clear plan, delivered safely, but with some pace”.
The MoD has promised that dismantling won’t commence until a site for the intermediate waste has been identified. It also confirmed to the Sunday Herald that the waste wouldn’t be stored at Rosyth.
“The submarine dismantling project aims to deliver a safe, secure and cost effective solution for dismantling the UK’s defuelled nuclear powered submarines,” said an MoD spokesman. “No radioactive waste will be removed from the submarines without a storage or disposal solution being agreed.”
Sean Donaldson, Babcock’s director at Rosyth, confirmed that the company had submitted an application for consent to undertake initial dismantling. “Babcock continues to support the MOD’s ambitions to deliver the submarine dismantling project safely and securely,” he said.
This story was followed up by the Dundee Courier.
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