THE COSTS of dealing with the unwanted products of the nuclear
age鈥攔adioactive wastes, spent reactor fuel and redundant nuclear
structures鈥� are collectively known as nuclear liabilities. Trade and
Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt recently told MPs that the government intends
to transfer the liabilities of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) and the UK Atomic
Energy Authority to a new body, the Liabilities Management Authority. The LMA,
she said, will be responsible 鈥渇or systematically and progressively reducing the
hazard posed by legacy facilities and wastes鈥�, and will have a specific remit to
develop an overall strategy for decommissioning and cleaning up Britain鈥檚
nuclear installations.
Because her Cabinet colleague Alastair Darling chose the same day to make a
statement on increasing benefits and pensions, and on new measures to help more
people into work, Hewitt鈥檚 announcement received only cursory treatment in the
press. Sadly, too, important questions relating to her statement got even less
publicity.
John Cunningham, MP for Sellafield, wanted to know what sort of body the LMA
would be. Will it be a public limited company or an executive agency, or will it
have some other public status? The BNFL facilities at Sellafield and elsewhere
have greatly improved the way they deal with 鈥渉istoric鈥� nuclear wastes; any
delay could be detrimental to this. He also asked whether the investment fund
and the income that the new authority earns will be safeguarded for its sole
use.
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Hewitt replied, somewhat ambiguously, that the LMA will be neither a plc nor
an executive agency, but a statutory non-departmental public body that will be
accountable to ministers, and through them to Parliament, for the management of
liabilities.
Um, yes, a quango by any other name. But Hewitt reassured MPs that the funds
will be ring-fenced. BNFL chairman Hugh Collum will welcome the news. Rumour has
it that the costs of BNFL鈥檚 nuclear-waste liabilities exceed the value of its
assets and would have left it insolvent.
LAST AUTUMN 快猫短视频 reported that an American company,
GreenSea Venture, wants to try reining in global warming by sucking carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the ocean
(20 October, 2001, p 7).
It aims to seed a large area of the Pacific with iron salts to force the
phytoplankton to bloom and swallow up huge amounts of the CO2.
Unfortunately the process could have a disastrous effect on sea life. But you
would need legislation to make the experiment illegal. I asked Michael Meacher,
the environment minister, if he knew of these plans.
Meacher said he was well aware of the experiment, and thought it unlikely
that it would become an acceptable option in the foreseeable future. There are
huge uncertainties about its biological impact. And forced fertilisation of
phytoplankton could offset any climatic benefit by causing the release of other
more powerful greenhouse gases鈥攕uch as methane and nitrous oxide.
On the legal aspect, the minister added, the disposal of waste and other
material at sea is strictly controlled under the London Convention, which is
global, and under the Oslo-Paris Convention for the Protection of the Marine
Environment of the North East Atlantic. The legal position under these
conventions would need to be carefully considered in relation to any proposal
for dumping CO2 in the ocean.
Clearly, the lawyers to the London and Oslo-Paris conventions should get
their thinking caps on, as it is likely that the heads of some governments will
think the ocean fertilisation idea is a godsend.