A SWISS-BASED company is touting for work disposing of high-level radioactive waste beneath the seabed off France and South Africa. Oceanic Disposal Management claims there is $660 million to be earned burying nuclear waste from Europe and the US in seafloor mud inside torpedo-shaped steel and lead containers.
The International Atomic Energy Agency dismisses ODM鈥檚 plans as 鈥渟cience fiction鈥�, while Greenpeace calls them 鈥渋rresponsible鈥�. Dumping radioactive waste overboard is outlawed by international treaty, but the UN鈥檚 International Maritime Organization (IMO) says that disposal beneath the seabed may still be technically legal.
But the IMO鈥檚 London Dumping Convention, which is meeting this week, is planning to close the loophole next year and make sub-seabed disposal illegal. 鈥淭his company鈥檚 plan looks fanciful but it is not something that was dreamt up over a glass of beer鈥� says Rene Coenen from the IMO. 鈥淓veryone will regard this as very serious.鈥�
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ODM鈥檚 head office is in Lugano, Switzerland, and the company has addresses in Russia, Italy, Guernsey and the British Virgin Islands. ODM鈥檚 technical director, George Comario, says that many scientists regard sub-seabed disposal as a safe and realistic option, though it has not yet been tested. He says that ODM has been 鈥渋n touch with countries who are considering this鈥�, but declines to name them.
Documents submitted by Greenpeace to this week鈥檚 meeting in London show that Comario wrote to South Africa鈥檚 Atomic Energy Corporation in May requesting support for ODM鈥檚 seabed disposal plan. ODM claims the disposal operation will require more than 2000 workers, 10 鈥渄isposal catamarans鈥� and up to 35 834 stainless steel, lead-lined 鈥渇ree-fall penetrators鈥�. The idea is to drop the penetrators packed with nuclear waste from the catamarans into at least 200 metres of soft seabed sediment. 鈥淲e are negotiating a similar project in France,鈥� Comario tells the South Africans.
At the same time, the Russian Federation is warning the London Dumping Convention that it may have to dump radioactive waste at sea in the future. Russia has tens of thousands of cubic metres of radioactive coolant water from nuclear submarines to dispose of every year. It is seeking money from other countries to fund land-based storage and processing plants.