The UK Government currently has two consultations on the National Policy Statement and Working with Communities both on the implementation of geological disposal of higher activity nuclear waste.
Local communities around England, Northern Ireland and Wales will be offered a £1m if they decide to host an underground nuclear waste facility, which will be stored there for thousands of years. This method of disposal would involve construction of underground disposal facility and deep investigation boreholes, where the radioactive waste would be safely compacted and stored.
The Government hopes that the financial incentive for the community that agrees to develop the £12bn project in the area will win public support for this project, after previous efforts have been rejected in 2013.
The geological disposal of radioactive substances will include storage of waste from nuclear power stations, waste from medical treatments, research and defence projects. This type of disposal is seen by experts as the safest and best long-term solution to the storage of nuclear waste, the volume of which is currently estimated to be around 750,000 cubic meters generated over hundreds of years. The plan is that this will also be a way to store more waste from future projects, such as Hinkley Point C.
At present, there are around 30 sites in the UK that store nuclear waste above ground, with the majority of sites in Cumbria. The Institute of Directors group said that the "running costs for a geological disposal facility storing the waste 1,000 metres below the surface would be significantly lower [than the costs of above ground storage]".
Although some of the councils welcomed the revised plan, Greenpeace criticised the plan and called the payments bribes, and commented the new nuclear power plants should not go ahead without a good long-term solution for storage of radioactive waste.
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