Fears over new generation of nuclear power stations » Environment » 24dash.com

Investing in a new generation of nuclear power stations would mean wasting taxpayers' money on a "discredited and dangerous" form of power, according to Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper.

One of the by-products of nuclear power is radioactive waste, which can be highly toxic and its disposal presents a problem.

To date, the only solution suggested has been storing the most radioactive waste underground for millennia, until it has decayed to safe levels.

Earlier this week, Australia's prime minister John Howard hit the headlines over comments he made regarding the possibility of his country agreeing to store nuclear waste from the uranium it sells overseas.

This policy is known as nuclear fuel leasing.

But according to Australian publication The Age, Australia has now all but ruled this out.

More than four million cubic metres of toxic waste is produced in the UK each year, while radioactive waste amounts to only about 1% of this.

Nuclear waste comes from a number of different sources including the operation and decommissioning of nuclear power stations and is disposed of according to its level of its radioactivity.

Low-level waste such as slightly contaminated material such as gloves, overalls or laboratory equipment accounts for 94% of all the UK's radioactive waste.

Accordingly to the Department of Trade and Industry's website, this type of nuclear waste is mainly disposed of at a 300-acre purpose-built disposal centre at Drigg in Cumbria.

The waste is packed into containers and placed in concrete-lined vaults which are subsequently sealed.

Medium or intermediate-level waste accounts for about 6% of all radioactive waste.

It is stored, mainly at the sites of production.

High-level, or heat generating, waste constitutes about 0.3% of nuclear waste and arises only from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

It has to be stored in special tanks. In the UK this is done at Sellafield and Dounreay, where it is allowed to cool for at least 50 years before being disposed of.

The UK used to dispose of some low and intermediate-level wastes in drums at selected sites in the sea.

The Government stopped this policy in 1982 and in 1993 accepted an international ban on sea disposal of radioactive wastes.

Copyright Press Association 2006