Lake District identified as prime site for burial of nuclear waste
October 28, 2010 by drjohnmcgowan
Filed under Green Energy
British Geological Survey identifies Lake District as the part of Cumbria most suitable for underground nuclear waste disposal
It is not clear what Wordsworth would have made of it, but the “bliss and solitude” of the Lake District that inspired the poet’s verse has now made it the UK’s leading contender for the long-term disposal of nuclear waste.
A report prepared for the government by the British Geological Survey (BGS) looked at the geological suitability of areas within Cumbria. The report will not in itself determine where a long-term nuclear dump will be sited, but it rules out much of the county outside the Lake District National Park as being unsuitable geologically.
Finding a safe disposal method for the UK’s nuclear waste has been a thorny issue for several decades. In 2006, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management published recommendations on long-term disposal, saying it would be best carried out by identifying suitable sites for burial.
The idea behind “deep geological disposal” is to store radioactive waste from nuclear power stations and military establishments within suitable rock formations so that it remains safe for thousands of years. The UK government is pursuing this strategy and similar geological disposal plans are being made in Finland, Sweden and the US.
In 2008, the government called for communities interested in hosting such geological storage facilities to come forward for further evaluations. So far three local authorities in Cumbria – Allerdale Borough Council, Copeland Borough Council and Cumbria County Council – have shown an interest. To rule out unsuitable locations, the BGS was asked to examine the known geological features of the areas.
Cumbria already hosts the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant.
Areas with natural resources such as coal or iron ores at depths greater than 100 metres were screened out, as were places with exploitable groundwater resources in aquifers, because of the risk of radioactive contamination. On this basis the BGS ruled that areas in north-west and south-west Cumbria were unsuitable.
The BGS report is only the start of the process of choosing suitable sites. “This work does not show where a facility might eventually be located,” the authors write. “It is at an early stage in the site selection process and simply intends to avoid unnecessary work in areas which are clearly unsuitable for obvious geological reasons. A more rigorous assessment, based on a comprehensive range of criteria, will only be undertaken if a ‘decision to participate’ in further stages of site selection process is taken.”
Energy minister Charles Hendry said: “We must progress implementation of geological disposal, the long-term sustainable solution for dealing with radioactive waste.”
He added: “The geological disposal facility site selection process is based on voluntarism and partnership and these results do not present any reason why West Cumbria cannot continue to consider whether or not to participate in that process.”
Ben Ayliffe, senior energy campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “It’s hard to imagine a more tragic legacy to Britain’s nuclear folly than vats of lethal nuclear waste being stored around Keswick or Scafell Pike … Dumping this stuff underground is no solution anyway – wherever it is. So we certainly shouldn’t be creating any more nuclear waste. There are much better ways of producing electricity.”
Greenland’s prime minister lambasts Greenpeace for raiding Arctic oil rig
August 31, 2010 by drjohnmcgowan
Filed under Green Energy
Kuupik Kleist claims environmental campaigners are damaging country’s economy by occupy drilling platform
The premier of Greenland has accused Greenpeace of threatening the safety of oil workers and the environment after four activists forced a controversial deep sea exploration rig in the Arctic to shut down today.
Just before dawn, the four campaigners used three high-speed inflatable boats to evade the Danish navy, before clambering on to the British-owned rig and slinging mountaineering-type platforms underneath the rig about 15m above the sea. The raid forced the Edinburgh-based oil exploration firm Cairn Energy to suspend drilling, escalating tensions between the Greenlandic government and Greenpeace.
Kuupik Kleist, the government’s socialist prime minister, denounced the campaigners’ actions, claiming they were damaging the recently independent country’s economy and ignoring the strict environmental and safety regulations Greenland had imposed on oil companies.
“This is clearly an illegal act, ignoring the rules of democracy,” he said, in a statement. “The cabinet regards Greenpeace’s action as very serious and an illegal attack on the country’s constitutional rights. It is worrying that Greenpeace, in their hunt for media exposure, violate security rules made to protect human lives and the environment.”
The Greenpeace action follows a standoff between the campaigners’ ship Esperanza and an armed Danish frigate and Greenland police vessels in Baffin Bay east of Greenland, where Cairn Energy is hoping to uncover major new reserves of oil or gas.
For the last nine days, the Esperanza has been closely shadowed by the frigate and Danish commandos while it circled a 500m exclusion zone around the rig, waiting for the chance to launch its direct action.
Cairn, which is drilling in an area known as “iceberg alley”, announced last week it had detected gas in a shallow sands and prompted alarm among environmentalists.
Campaigners warn this will lead to a dangerous rush to exploit one of the world’s last major untapped oil and gas fields in one of the planet’s most fragile locations. Greenpeace has described the site as a key battleground in the climate change campaign.
The US Geological Survey estimated last year that there may be 90bn barrels of oil and 50tn cubic metres of gas across the Arctic. Several multinational oil companies, including Exxon, Chevron and Shell, are waiting for permission from Greenland to begin deep sea drilling around its coast.
Sim McKenna, a US Greenpeace campaigner and one of the four activists occupying the platform, said Greenland and Cairn were being “reckless” with a fragile and pristine environment. “We intend to stay here for as long as possible and as long as necessary to stop this reckless drilling,” he said.
“The BP Gulf oil disaster showed us it’s time to go beyond oil. The drilling rig we’re hanging off could spark an Arctic oil rush, one that would pose a huge threat to the climate and put this fragile environment at risk.”
Greenpeace hopes it will be able to occupy the platform until the end of the week. It hopes a long delay before drilling resumes will prevent Cairn from striking oil or gas before the intense Arctic winter sets in, forcing a halt to the exploration effort.
The activists have food for several days, and are wearing Arctic survival suits against the freezing temperatures, but are precariously tied to the underside of the rig. Sources in the area said winds of up to 50mph were forecast were forecast for Thursday.
Morten Neilsen, deputy police chief for Greenland, said rescue vessels were standing by in case any of the climbers fell. He said all four would be arrested and prosecuted, but he refused to say whether they would be forcibly removed. “What we intend to do, how and when, is an operational detail it wouldn’t be smart to advise Greenpeace about,” he said.
Cairn Energy argues that Greenpeace has exaggerated the significance of its exploration and its risks. There are two major oil and gas fields already in the Arctic, at Sakhalin in eastern Russia and Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, providing 10% of the world’s oil.
Greenpeace argues that deep sea Arctic drilling is extremely perilous because of the sea ice and intense weather conditions in the region. It believes the risks posed by this operation go “far beyond” the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
In the Arctic an oil spill would destroy the region’s vulnerable and as yet untouched habitats, while the cold water would prevent any oil from quickly breaking down. Any emergency operation to tackle a disaster would encounter huge technical and logistical problems in such a remote area.