Where will the UK bury nuclear waste for 100,000 years?
www.bbc.com
The UK's nuclear waste needs a permanent home - but finding a community willing to take it is tricky.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2686908

One of UK’s oldest nuclear waste storage silos is currently leaking radioactive liquid into the ground. That is a “recurrence of a historic leak” that Sellafield Ltd, the company that operates the site, says first started in the 1970s.

Sellafield has also faced questions about its working culture and adherence to safety rules. The company is currently awaiting sentencing after it pleaded guilty, in June, to charges related to cyber-security failings.

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝AEnglish
    93·
    3 months ago

    I did some postgraduate courses with guys from Sellafield - the shenanigans they talked about didn’t fill me with confidence.

    I went on a school trip there and it is very impressive, like a Bond villains lair, but they did always gloss over the waste issue and, until that’s solved, we should be wary of building any similar large reactors.

    • steeznson@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Yeah my mate worked there for a few years after his chemical engineering degree. I hadn’t realised what a disaster it was until he spoke about it. Apparently the Russians phoned the site when Chernobyl happened because it was the worst nuclear disaster in Europe that had happened before.

      Mate also told me there were many flora and fauna that lived in the area despite the high levels of gamma radiation. One of his colleagues had a bird shit in her hair on the way in to work one day and it wouldn’t wash out in the chemical shower so they had to shave her hair off.