Chamber and committees

I am pleased to announce publication today of the Scottish Government and UK Government’s policy on Dounreay radioactive waste substitution and also the response paper to the Dounreay Radioactive Waste Substitution Consultation.

The consultation, published jointly by the Scottish Government and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in December 2010 proposed a means to deal with overseas reprocessing contracts through waste substitution. More specifically, it is proposed that approval be given for the substitution of:

Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) and cemented Materials Test Reactor (MTR) raffinate wastes from Dounreay with vitrified radioactive wastes from Sellafield, and

PFR raffinate waste at Dounreay with cemented MTR raffinate waste at Dounreay.

Having considered all the responses to the consultation, the Scottish and UK Governments have concluded that a waste substitution policy for radioactive waste arising from overseas research reactor fuel reprocessing contracts is an acceptable practice that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) can adopt to deal with historic Dounreay contracts and return overseas waste.

The practice will help existing overseas contracts to be honoured at the earliest opportunity and provide greater certainty to the overall decommissioning schedule at Dounreay. The policy also rules out the need to design, build, operate, decommission and dispose of a vitrification facility at Dounreay. While the exact cost of a vitrification plant for Dounreay has not been determined, it is estimated to be in the order of several hundreds of millions of pounds.

In summary, the policy will help overseas radioactive waste currently stored at Dounreay to be returned to NDA’s overseas customers – in this case, Italy, Belgium, Australia and Germany. Any such shipments will be carried out in full compliance with international laws and regulations. Any shipment of radioactive waste to the overseas customers will be undertaken to these high standards and this will be the case whether the policy is implemented or not.

The Scottish Government has worked closely with a wide range of stakeholders to shape the final policy. One of these key stakeholders is SEPA who will, under this policy, need to be satisfied that the waste substitution arrangements between the NDA and its overseas customers result in environmental neutrality.

This is not a legacy that Scotland chose to have, however, the Scottish Government remains committed to dealing responsibly with this nuclear legacy that it has inherited.