Antinuclear

Czech Republic struggles with the problem of mounting nuclear waste

Czech nuclear waste deep storage will only be sited where there is local support says ministry Radio Czech Republic, 15-07-2016  Chris Johnstone Nuclear power means nuclear waste and the Czech Republic, like many other European countries, is faced with the headache of where to store the waste long term. A shortlist of seven locations for geological tests for suitable deep storage resulted in howls of protest from most of the citizens and mayors living near the sites. And that has forced a rethink from the ministry and state body piloting the selection process.

The Czech Republic has been producing nuclear power for just over 30 years now with the two plants at Dukovany and Temelín responsible for producing around a third of the country’s electricity. And there are plans to boost that proportion with more plants in the future.

But the high level nuclear waste produced from the process is still being stocked on site at the plants with plans for a deep storage site hitting furious opposition from most of the seven preliminary sites earmarked for geological tests. Five of those sites have launched or allied themselves to legal proceedings aimed at stopping the surveys and sent back millions of crowns in payments aimed at compensating locals for the inconvenience.

Now the Ministry of Industry and Trade says it will bow to the opposition and seek to push ahead with surveys at one locality near Třebíč in Vysočina and another straddling Vysočina and South Moravia.

Minister Jan Mládek said the decision was not a defeat for the ministry………..

What’s the time pressure to get this done – how long can you keep storing it [the waste] at nuclear sites?

“It’s a really long term process and the storage should be built by 2065, but we have milestones and what for us at this moment is very important is that the decision about the location should be decided by the Czech government in 2025. This is a milestone we are targeting, we are not yet about building but about picking the place where it will be built.” http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/czech-nuclear-waste-deep-storage-will-only-be-sited-where-there-is-local-support-says-ministry

July 16, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized