Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, has a worsening leak from a huge silo of radioactive waste that could pose a risk to the public, the Guardian can reveal.
Concerns over safety at the crumbling building, as well as cracks in a reservoir of toxic sludge known as B30, have caused diplomatic tensions with countries including the US, Norway and Ireland, which fear Sellafield has failed to get a grip of the problems.
Problems like this are just handwaved away because nuclear waste could in theory be safely disposed of. In the cases where is hasn’t been the pro nuclear guys just say “well if they did it properly it wouldn’t be an issue”, which might be true but if countries like the UK, US and Germany have had issues, you have to ask if its really realistic to assume that the problem will always be dealt with properly.
The other answer is some future tech reactor that hasn’t been built on any real world scale that runs on nuclear waste and produces none. Great idea in theory but how does it compare with renewables in terms of cost?
The frustrating thing is that, in classic UK fashion, these problems are almost entirely self-inflicted by privatisation, with the company responsible trying to do it as cheaply as possible, even if that means half-assing it.
This exact same site was in the news yesterday(!) as well for having long term cyber security vulnerabilities.