Nuclear pressure piles on McConnell

azzuri · Nuclear pressure piles on McConnell

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Nuclear pressure piles on McConnell

PETER MACMAHON

JACK McConnell, the First Minister, will today come under renewed pressure to say whether he favours building new nuclear power stations in Scotland.

Mr McConnell will face fresh questions over his stance after the publication of the final report from the independent body charged with finding ways of safely disposing of nuclear waste.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) is expected to conclude that radioactive by-products can be safely contained in deep underground storage bunkers.

CoRWM, is also expected to call for more research into the geological conditions necessary to ensure that nuclear waste can be stored safely for hundreds of years.

Last night, the First Minister's opponents sought to exploit the differences between Scottish Labour, which favours new nuclear power stations, and its Liberal Democrat Executive partners, who are against.

Chris Ballance, a Scottish Green MSP, said: "Previous admissions by CoRWM reveal Jack McConnell will never be able to justify a new nuclear reactor for at least 40 years, and it exposes the arrant nonsense that proposals to manage the nuclear waste legacy could possibly be described as 'solving' the problem."

The nationalists' Richard Lochhead said: "There is now no place to hide for this First Minister on the issue of nuclear power. The publication of this report means that it is now time for Labour and Lib Dem ministers to come off the fence."

Meanwhile, Sir David Wallace, vice-president of the Royal Society warned against further delays in taking decisions. He said: "The nature of scientific knowledge is such that there will always be levels of uncertainty associated with any method of disposing of radioactive waste.

"There is considerably less uncertainty surrounding burying radioactive waste deep underground in stable geological formations than other options. It is important that we act with urgency, because identifying appropriate sites and then consulting on and building these deep storage facilities will take decades."

Professor Gordon MacKerron, chairman of CoRWM, said: "The UK has been creating radioactive waste for 50 years without any clear idea of what to do with it. The issue has dragged on for too long.

"Today we will announce our final recommendations, which we are confident will, for the first time, provide a realistic strategy to deal with this problem."

A spokeswoman for Mr McConnell said that the Executive would not comment until it had seen the final CoRWM report.