Recommendation 8

There is also an opportunity to save taxpayers’ money by accelerating the programme to create a deep storage facility, known as the Geological Disposal Facility, to store highly radioactive waste that is currently held at interim facilities at Sellafield and the sites of former power stations elsewhere in the UK. Current international scientific advice is that the best thing to do with this type of waste is to store it underground, and other countries are seeking to take this approach. The NDA told us it was working with the Department, the relevant regulators and interested communities to identify a suitable site for such a facility. In common with most other countries with a nuclear legacy, the Department is following a consent-based process to identify a suitable site, which by its nature means the Department must wait until it has a community that is giving consent. It told us if it is ultimately not possible to run a consent-based process, then there are alternatives available to it, but its clear preference is to go down that path and to give it every chance of success as a first priority. Due to the uncertainties of this process, the Department was unable to indicate a timeframe in which a Geological Disposal Facility might be completed.16 Maximising the potential of assets