Nuclear Waste: Storage

Answer: My Lords, research into emergent technologies such as partitioning and transmutation is being supported by such organisations as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and via the UK’s membership of international bodies such as EURATOM. However, as the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has highlighted in its preliminary recommendations on the disposal of higher activity radioactive wastes, it will be many years before technologies such as transmutation are capable of dealing with such wastes on an industrial scale.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Monday, 5 June 2006 by Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour).

Question: Whether they propose to develop emerging technologies in the United Kingdom so as to reduce the need for long-term storage of nuclear waste; and, if so, which technologies.

Secondary information