ANALYSIS - Mike Davis
An albeit brief review of the NWS GDF Report 2024 (1) (which unsurprisingly didn't mention anything about the failed engagement in South Holderness), indicates that the organisation is doubling down on the Cumbria and Lincolnshire areas for the GDF and its surface site.
Notably for both the Cumbrian sites, the search area for the actual GDF under the sea is the same, just the areas for surface facilities are different. NWS commissioned a survey of search area of the Irish Sea in 2022 (2).
Potentially significant in the report is that on the maps of both the Mid Copeland and South Copeland areas, the position of Drigg (actually in South Copeland) is highlighted.
Drigg is where NWS (and it's predecessors) have been running the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) since 1959. Initially burying the waste in clay trenches, and latterly in containers within big clay pits.
Drigg is 3.5 miles south of Sellafield where all nuclear waste is processed before disposal, and because of its existing use has a purpose-built railhead.
The former Royal Ordanance Factory site covers 270 acres (3), and the 1 km square required for the GDF surface facility equates to 247 acres. The site is approximately 400m from the Irish Sea and at its lowest point is only 5m above sea level.
NWS is currently in the process of permanently closing the LLWR site, capping it with a membrane to protect the waste 'for up to 100 years'. However there has been concern from the Environment Agency since 2014 (4) that Drigg's coastal location means the LLWR will be eroded by sea level rises and storms, releasing radioactive material into the environment.
If NWS were to build its GDF surface facility (which will operate for 100 years) at this site it would have to put in coastal defences to protect that facility for its lifetime. Those defences would also protect the existing LLWR.
So is the pressure off Theddlethorpe, where a new (expensive) rail line would have to be built, and an off-shore survey has yet to take place? Particularly since the Updated approach to managing nuclear waste report (5), with it’s ‘Safe, Sooner’ message, talked about delivering savings in the overall cost of a GDF (and as we know from our new Chancellor, the UK government is very short of cash).
Well the answer is probably in that 2022 survey.
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