NIS is a not-for-profit, independent information service, which works to promote public awareness and foster debate on nuclear disarmament and related safety and environmental issues
Interim Storage of Laid Up Submarines (ISOLUS) will be subject to a 2nd Public Consultation at the end of 2009. The nuclear reactor compartments (RCs) and contaminated pipework has to be stored until a long-term storage facility for nuclear waste is established. NIS has taken a sideways look at the options regarding the CUT UP of RCs for boxed storage and CUT OUT of RCs to be stored as a whole submarine section. The 1st consultation and current NGO policy is to support Cut Out.
Nuclear Information Service has prepared a map showing locations at which radioactive waste from the UK's military nuclear programme is held (accurate as of October 2007).
Cleaning up military nuclear sites and equipment in Scotland will cost taxpayers up to £3 billion, official figures have revealed. Full article from the Scotsman.
No military waste is classified as HLW. Spent Fuel from submarine reactors is stored in dedicated Ministry Of Defence (MOD) ponds at BNFL Sellafield, Cumbria but is not listed in the Dept. of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Inventory of all nuclear waste.
Depleted uranium is a dense, weakly radioactive metal used in armour-piercing shells. Hundreds of tonnes of them were fired by US and UK forces in Iraq in 2003. Previous research at the US government's Sandia National Labs in New Mexico found that people exposed to DU dust were at little extra risk of developing cancers (New Scientist, 30 July 2005, p5).
8 Jan 2007 : Column 111W Trident, Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his estimate is of the time it would take to procure further Trident D5 missiles. [108974]
Nuclear Waste (Submarines) 5. Mr Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive what its approach is to the disposal of nuclear waste from redundant nuclear submarines. (S2O-6633)
The Minister for Environment and Rural Development (Ross Finnie):* We welcome the Ministry of Defence's decision not to progress options for storage or disposal of radioactive waste from redundant submarines until after the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has reported.