Examination of Witnesses (Questions 119
- 139)
MONDAY 3 DECEMBER 2001
MR STEPHEN
TINDALE, MR
MARK JOHNSTON,
MR CHARLES
SECRETT, DR
RACHEL WESTERN
AND MR
ROGER HIGMAN
Chairman
119. Gentlemen, lady, welcome to the Committee.
We have for the sake of the record Mr Stephen Tindale, Executive
Director and Mark Johnston, described here as Campaigner for Greenpeace.
I do not know if that is a profession or title or what. Then we
have Charles Secrett, Friends of the Earth Executive Director,
Dr Rachel Western, Nuclear Research Officer, and Roger Higman
who is the Senior Climate Campaigner. Let's start and I am sure
you will not all need to reply to every question, if I may state
the obvious; it would be helpful to establish that.
(Mr Secrett) Perhaps it would be helpful
if I open a little, Chairman.
120. No, I am sorry, we are going to ask questions,
if you do not mind. We have got votes coming so we are anxious
to get through our agenda. Do you think there is a consultation
process which will end up with a wonderful consensus that says,
"this is the right technology and this is the right place"?
(Mr Secrett) I think that what we would say, first
of all, in terms of the consultation, and we are going to take
the questions alternatively so that we will not duplicate anything,
Mr Meacher said that the wrong decision would be catastrophic,
so the consultation is clearly a very important process. The recognition
that sufficient time should be allowed is welcomed by both our
organisations but we are very concerned that we are already halfway
through the first period and very little initiative has been taken
so far by DEFRA, in our view, and we would want to see action
as soon as possible. For example, the acceleration of the waste
conditioning and establishing an independent Nirex should be taken
on an earlier timescale than the five-year plan.
Diana Organ
121. Obviously the most important bit for local
communities is that they are involved in the consultation as fully
and actively as possible. How can that be done when they may not
know whether they are going to be involved or not?
(Mr Tindale) They cannot. We think that there are
two pre-conditions for a successful consultation. One is that
the Government has agreed that no nuclear waste will be produced
so we are talking about dealing with the legacy without the threat
of increased volumes of nuclear waste than the past. The second
point is full and genuine transparency on which sites are being
considered, which local communities are being impacted. Despite
the fine words in the DEFRA consultation paper, the Government
currently is embarked in going in the opposite direction in the
Terrorism Bill in restricting information on certain matters.
122. As we know, in Finland where they did not
have a debate on the principle but they just agreed the principle
of deep waste repositories and then went out to local communities
saying, "Let's consult about who is going to host one and
who is going to have one", one of the ways that they got
that through, if you like, was local communities were given a
power of veto. Do you believe that should be the same here?
(Mr Secrett) We do very much and we think that is
one of the benefits of the Finnish process in that it helps genuine
engagement and participation from a very early stage and we think
participative decision-making is very different from consultative
decision-making. We also think that apart from communities being
fully informed about whether their area is due for a waste management
site, that it is essential that communities are not bribed with
sweeteners or offered compensation because we do not believe that
that will fully account therefore in their-decision-making for
the rights of future generations let alone in the context of the
post 11 September world with the consequences of some form of
tragic and horrific attack on such a site and therefore the dispersal
of the radioactive problem over a much wider set of communities.
123. But the Finnish system, if you like, was
successful because all communities had the veto but there were
community benefits offered to those that would host such a facility.
Do you think that we should be doing that and what community benefits
could be offered to that community offering to have a radioactive
waste facility?
(Mr Tindale) We are not in favour of a system like
that because the decision on where to store nuclear waste must
be made on environmental and safety grounds.
124. But it was with Finland. We know that 30
per cent of the UK has a geological structure that might be used.
There have been drafts of anything between 300 and 12 sites. Given
we have made the decision that maybe 20 sites can be identified
to those communities, should we offer them benefits if they host
it?
(Mr Tindale) We do not believe that would be the right
way forward because it would be impossible to make an objective
and impartial judgment if you were looking at socio-economic factors
of that kind.
(Dr Western) There are generic problems associated
with nuclear waste disposal which have been identified at the
Nirex inquiry. It will be a long time before they are resolved
if they are resolved at all and I think it would prejudice the
process by inducing a community to take on a repository with bribes,
as it were, when we have no solution at present to nuclear waste
management.
Diana Organ: So a veto but no sweeteners?
Mr Jack
125. I just wanted to probe a bit more that
last point. In the evidence from Greenpeace there is a paragraph
here that says the most important question of all which the government
fails to ask is "Given that there is no solution to radioactive
waste, should we halt its production?" It would appear that
we have got a problem. You in your opening statement mentioned
the legacy waste. You then go on to say: "Without an affirmative
answer to this later question, it will be impossible to formulate
an adequate or workable answer to the former question. Only when
it has been agreed that nuclear waste production will end permanently
could there be even a chance of reaching agreement about how to
manage the radioactive waste that already exists. That seems to
me an impenetrable barrier to any kind of solution to the problem.
When you say there is no solution to the radioactive waste, does
that mean that there are no technologies known to you that provide
what you would regard as a solution or are the ones that are on
offer currently, in your judgement, wholly inadequate?
(Dr Western) The topic of my PhD was the Nirex safety
assessment and the conclusions that I reached in that were shared
with seven academic witnesses that we put forward at the inquiry
and our evidence was compared to Nirex's evidence at the inquiry.
It was a very excellent process, a very specific programme with
technical advisers. The conclusion of the Inspectorate was that
disposal was a novel technology which had generic problems. It
covers many areas but essentially Nirex's notion that they can
predict the amount of radioactivity that would leak from a dump
to a sufficient degree of accuracy to be confident in their assessment
was just shown not to be credible. We have a great deal of work
before we can begin to make confident predictions that we will
know what will happen to nuclear waste if it is disposed. We may
never reach that decision and we should passively store the material
in a retrievable form, and stop producing it because we do not
know what to do with what we have got already.
(Mr Tindale) We do not think it is an inpenetrable
barrier. It is a very easy logical step for the Government to
say, as the Germans have, that they will phase out nuclear power
and production of nuclear waste. The reason why we say that is
a pre-condition is partly technologically, we do not know what
volume of nuclear waste we are talking about, and partly political.
Whilst there is a threat of new nuclear facilities hanging over
us, all we would say is it is absolutely impossible for the Government
to get any consensus about the management of the existing legacy.
Patrick Hall
126. I would like to pursue that one and maybe
there will be a chance to come back on that. I think we all agree
that the context of effective consultation and understanding and
being informed on these difficult matters has to be greater openness
and trust—openness from the industry in particular but also
government. Friends of the Earth has drawn attention to the importance
of Nirex's transparency statement or policy, whatever it is called,
and contrasted that with BNFL's perceived position. Last week
I asked Nirex the question how transparent are you? I then asked
them to demonstrate their commitment to that by naming the 12
late-1980s dump sites and the answer to that was no, they would
not be that open or transparent. Does Friends of the Earth wish
to reflect upon its congratulations to Nirex's openness in the
light of that key refusal of information which suggests that perhaps
Nirex is not quite ready to treat the public as adults.
(Dr Western) I work two days a week for Friends of
the Earth and two days of the week I work for Nirex as a research
associate with Lancaster University. I am very impressed personally
with the integrity and commitment of people like Chris Murray,
the Director, and David Wild, the Head of Strategy and so on and
so forth. I think it is on a personal level that statements like
transparency become important. As I understand it, the reason
why Nirex will not release the information about the sites is
because they have got an imperative from government not to release
that information.
(Mr Secrett) I think also in our evidence what we
are trying to do is draw a distinction, a relative one, between
the way Nirex is beginning to transform itself in a way that we
do not think BNFL is. As you will see from the thrust our evidence,
we see there is a very obvious market future for nuclear companies
and that is around decommissioning, safe storage, clean-up and
aspects of the industry like that. But that requires transformation
not only in terms of how one deals with the public or specific
communities but also in terms of one's business plan, and on both
sides we see that Nirex is beginning to make significant shifts
whereas BNFL is not. This is one of the things that concerns us
so much, this emphasis on business as usual and new build by the
back door or front door is going to take away from BNFL the opportunity
to realise the real world market opportunities in decommissioning,
clean-up and safe, passive, retrieveable storage. That is where
the money and the jobs lie, not in new build or continuing reprocessing,
which simply add to the problem of the waste.
Patrick Hall: That is a slightly different issue,
I was not asking that, and we might have the opportunity to look
at that later. I am happy to take your comments, Dr Western, about
individuals and how you have related to them, and I had a positive
impression of Nirex's representatives here but the test is not
whether individuals are nice or not nice but what the organisation
does. At the moment although they sound okay on this subject we
have little evidence that there is a genuine will to move. I think
that is something that you may care to reflect on as an organisation
when you are saying they are going to the right direction. Maybe
we can come back on other matters.
Mr Breed
127. Can we turn now to the independent body
to oversee policy decision making. There has been some discussion
about the way in which that may demonstrate to the public that
the public interest is being properly taken care of and looked
after and such. Perhaps you could rehearse to us what you think
would be the benefits of a properly independent body. More particularly
how would you see the membership of that independent body being
made up and what its terms of reference, its remit would be in
order to ensure that we get something which is going to be seen
as really looking after the broad public interest.
(Mr Johnston) RWMAC, the Radioactive Waste Management
Advisory Committee, like Nirex, has often in the past suffered
because of its domination by nuclear industry interests. An independent
body would certainly help, we think, but still to us, and certainly
to Greenpeace, it is a matter of detail that is a second order
interest to the overall objective. For example, in theory it may
be that somebody from one of the environmental groups could be
part of that body to add to its independence. Certainly Greenpeace
would be very reluctant even to consider that when we are in a
situation where, as Stephen said earlier, nuclear waste is still
being produced. So institutional arrangements may be resolved
over time to deal with the legacy but we are in the situation
where radioactive waste is still being produced today and also
where the Prime Minister's Office is considering a new build nuclear
programme. Until these bigger issues are dealt with, then the
way in which society formulates institutions that deal with this
legacy is, regrettably for us, going to have to wait.
128. Can I take it from that if Greenpeace were
invited to forward a member of an independent body which was being
set up that you felt had broad independence, you would still not
take up such an invitation?
(Mr Johnston) Certainly not at the moment.
(Mr Secrett) Can I add three points to that. In terms
of the specifics of your question as to what we would like to
see, we support the recommendation for an independent oversight
body. We do not think that RWMAC itself fulfills that criteria
because of its too close links with the industry. Any such institutional
arrangements, apart from being distanced from both government
and industry, must be supported by adequate resources. Thirdly,
we would suggest that there would need to be an injection of new
personnel with an environmental as well as a nuclear background.
I think those are three particulars that we would like to see
in such an independent oversight body.
129. So you would not, as we have just heard
from Mr Johnston, refuse an invitation to join such a body? You
would need to ensure it had a financial independence and composition
that covered the full range of not only nuclear technical ability
but also the environmental aspects as well. Is that what you are
saying?
(Mr Secrett) Absolutely. In terms of any such invitation
which we would treat with the greatest of respect, we deal with
such invitations on a case-by-case basis. We do not have a general
view as Friends of the Earth as to whether, if invited, we should
join such bodies. We would look very much at the merits of the
case and the particularities of the agenda that was being dealt
with.
Mr Lepper
130. Could we just go back to this question
of the response of Friends of the Earth to Nirex on the one hand
and BNFL on the other. In terms of transparency and so on can
I just clarify for my satisfaction, I think it was Friends of
the Earth that described the process of the BNFL stakeholder consultation
as just a "cynical PR exercise". Does Greenpeace share
that view?
(Mr Tindale) We were involved and we withdrew because
we felt that there was insufficient commitment within the company
to real change, so I guess that is probably a yes.
131. I just wanted to establish that it was
a view shared by both organisations. And it is to do with structures
rather than Dr Western was perhaps suggesting personalities and
personal commitment?
(Mr Secrett) We are trying to make relative judgments
here and assessments in a changing—though slowly changing—situation
as far as both bodies are concerned. I have been directly involved
in stakeholder dialogue with BNFL and while those discussions
were extremely interesting and informative I do not believe that
they led to any real progress in terms of action on behalf of
that which was agreed mutually as part of the stakeholder dialogue,
and that is the problem. We are not going to sit here and pretend
that Nirex are angels when it comes to consultation or freedom
of information or transparency, but we do believe that they understand
far better than BNFL do the nature of the crossroads that the
industry is in and the importance of being able to change an old
way of doing business, and that includes the old way of doing
business in terms of engagement with outside bodies, including
communities and the general public.
132. There are those, I suppose, who might argue
that one of the problems that we have here is an industry with
some fairly entrenched views about its future and groups such
as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth with equally entrenched
views with little chance of moving towards each other in any way.
Is that too simple a way of looking at the situation?
(Mr Secrett) Personally I would say from our point
of view, yes, it is. I think that one of the tragedies of public
debate over the nuclear set of dilemmas over the last 30 years
is that all too often it has come across as a clash of religions
or faiths and I think that is certainly something that we would
accept and organisations on our side have contributed towards
that perception, if not reality, but I think that what we recognise
now is that there are grounds on both scientific, political and
economic considerations for different approaches to be taken.
We believe that the science of waste treatment and waste disposal
is very much on our side and we think that, for example, the so-called
Nirex inquiry has demonstrated that. We think that in terms of
best practice consultation and participation and the involvement
of outside bodies and communities that both sides have evolved
positions but again the type of participative decision making
and openness and transparency that sustainable development policy
making argues for is something that both sides can engage with.
Finally, we think that the economic case that we have made, the
market case, for the future of the industry is one that far, far
better sits with market realities and the political realities
of whether nuclear waste disposal and nuclear site operation is
publicly acceptable and that those aspects have taken on a new
dimension since 11 September. So we do believe that there are
grounds for common engagement based on objective assessment in
all three of those areas, but it is also true to say that we think
that our position requires less of a shift than the industry's
position to be able to so engage and move forward together.
Mr Jack
133. You mention, Mr Secrett, the word "transparency",
implying that the players you hae so far mentioned in the disposal
business are not being as open as they should be about various
aspects of this complex situation. Can you tell us where you think
that Nirex, BNFL, and indeed the Government, are not being transparent?
Would you go as far as to say they are being dishonest in terms
of holding back information, where you believe you are not getting
the full picture?
(Mr Secrett) In terms of a specific answer to that
question, sir, I may not be the best person to reply because I
think you are looking for examples.
134. Or areas where you are saying, "I
wish I knew more, I think they are holding something back".
(Dr Western) I would like to draw your attention to
the document produced by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
in 1999. BNFL gave evidence to you last week and an example of
the dishonesty that goes on is that they told you that only 25
per cent of the waste remained unconditioned, at least they gave
that impression because the whole that they gave was the total
Nirex inventory, whereas, in fact, in 1999 the Nuclear Installations
Inspectorate said that only 15 per cent of waste has been conditioned
to a passive safe state. There is also the NII audit of 1996 which
points out the abysmal state of nuclear waste at Sellafield. It
is in a condition where it is liable to go critical or catch fire
and a great deal of work needs to be done. On Friday BNFL press
office refused to fax across to me a copy of a press release and
I could not get from the NII an up-to-date figure for this Committee
of the amount of waste that has been conditioned to a passive
state. There are problems with the nuclear industry, particularly
with the language that they use in terms of transparency, there
is an attempt to bamboozle, but efforts are being made by the
Food Standards Agency, by Nirex and by different institutions.
Another example of the lack of information is the plutonium management
report which has just come out from the Environment Council stakeholder
dialogue with BNFL. The Friends of the Earth emphasised in November
2000 that our continued involvement in the stakeholder dialogue
depended on whether BNFL would provide information. Before I came
this morning I read what information had been supplied and there
is column after column of BNFL being asked to do this and they
have not yet done it. From BNFL we are getting more of the same
and it is really very depressing.
135. We are going as part of our evidence-taking
exercise to BNFL at Sellafield. If there are further questions
I would find it quite helpful to have a list of the main areas,
not every small thing because it would be impossible to ask those
questions, but it would be quite useful to know rather rapidly
where you think they are not being open so that we might probe
ourselves. I would find that quite helpful.
(Mr Secrett) Mr Jack, Chairman through you, would
it be helpful then if both Greenpeace and ourselves provided some
supplementary evidence on exactly those generic issues and provide
some specific examples?
Chairman: Certainly but we will need it by Thursday
to be realistic. David Borrow?
Mr Borrow
136. Going back to the long-term storage or
disposal of nuclear waste, which was touched on earlier, I am
trying to clear in my own mind the position of both groups. From
what you said earlier, am I right in assuming that both groups
are opposed to storage in deep storage areas and the preference
is for it to be stored on the surface until such time as technologies
change, but also that we cannot really engage in a proper discussion
about solutions until such time as the Government decides to bring
an end to the creation of more nuclear waste? Am I right in assuming
that that is the position of both organisations?
(Mr Tindale) I think you have characterised it basically
correctly. There is no safe or satisfactory solution to nuclear
waste which is why we must stop producing any more of it. For
dealing with the legacy that we already have the crucial principles
are that it must be stored in a form which is monitorable, manageable
and retrievable.
137. The consultation that the government is
now starting, part of that consultation would be to create a consensus
about how nuclear waste should be disposed of. In your view, is
it reasonable for the Government to adopt that method of consultation
and should that method of consultation come down in favour of
deep storage, which seems to be the evidence that a lot of scientific
communities have been giving? Do you have a problem with that
method of consultation?
(Mr Tindale) It is wrong in principle to enter a consultation
knowing what your outcome is going to be. We do not believe there
is any way of disposing of nuclear waste. You can bury it, dump
it, out of sight out the mind, but the radioactivity will come
back to haunt you, if you like, so we are opposed to deep disposal
in principle because it will give the impression that the problem
has been solved and what, in fact, has happened is it has been
shuffled off the stage.
(Mr Secrett) That is certainly our position as well
and perhaps we could arrange to give you one or two specific reasons
as to why.
(Dr Western) My first degree is in chemistry and the
thing which is particularly problematic with nuclear waste disposal
is the nuclear industry have no idea how much radioactivity will
dissolve in the groundwater and seep through the ground. So the
errors in the calculations—Nirex do not call them errors,
they call them a range of probability distribution functions—the
evidence shows that the figures could be one million times different
depending on which numbers you actually use. When you are talking
about a risk factor of one in a million you could end up with
doses very much higher than Nirex give the impression that you
are going to get. That is one thing. The second thing is the very
process of digging the hole, digging into the ground damages the
rock and creates fractures. That is called an "evacuation
damage" zone. The Swedes have called that a super-conductor,
whereas in the evidence that Nirex put before the Nirex inquiry,
they completely excluded that route of transfer. If you tell a
computer that a problem does not exist the computer is going to
pump out the answer you want. All the way through the Nirex case
there are these technical errors and gliches and they need to
be fully examined. Nirex are at the moment looking at something
called the phased disposal concept which is where you would store
the waste underground initially and then make a decision about
whether or not you seal that hole up. There are even problems
there because the hole itself might collapse. Friends of the Earth
very much welcomes the consultation process in that they have
taken a step back, they have recognised the scientific problems
with disposal and they are proposing to spend a great deal of
time in looking at the way forward, whereas the House of Lords
are recommending that you should push through disposal foisted
on communities using the planning process.
138. To come back on the House of Lords' Report
just briefly, the House of Lords' Report recommended fairly strongly
in a post 11 September situation that deep storage had even more
support than it had before. They argue that that was the case,
there were strong reasons for storing nuclear waste in deep storage
rather than on the surface. Post 11 September the Friends of the
Earth are reviewing their policy in terms of the nuclear issues.
Has that led Friends of the Earth to look again at their approach
to surface storage of nuclear waste?
(Dr Western) We are looking for firm information from
the nuclear industry on this one, but one of the new pieces of
information we are feeding in is the STOA Report produced for
the European Parliament, which shows that an accident at Sellafield
in the liquid high level waste tanks could be 40 times worse than
Chernobyl and could kill two million over 50 years. So the main
things in terms of focus and how we manage nuclear waste is that
conditioning should be accelerated, particularly of liquid, high
level waste stores. What we are beginning to think about is maybe
having something which is below ground but not deep below ground
so that it is not forgotten, so you would have the benefits of
avoiding the terrorist crash situation but you would not have
problems of waste leaking into the ground water system in an uncontrollable
way. We very much appreciate the consultation process and believe
that all these things need to be on the table and there needs
to be firm information from the nuclear industry. The technical
reports need to be commissioned to find out what the numbers and
figures actually are.
139. It is interesting these were issues that
were raised when we interviewed people from Nirex last week and
the idea of not on surface storage as being the best solution
or deep storage being at this stage the best permanent solution,
but some intermediate underground storage that allows the nuclear
waste to be retracted and dealt with should technology change,
is one way that a consensus could possibly emerge. If work went
along that way of thinking, would your organisation or both organisations
be prepared to engage in discussions and consultation irrespective
of the decision by government on whether or not the nuclear industry
should continue to produce nuclear waste?
(Mr Secrett) Yes, all of us have an obligation and
responsibility to try and find at least partial solutions to seemingly
intractable problems. Echoing the point that Stephen made earlier
and we ourselves have made in our evidence, it is important to
proceed from principle and the principles are that the waste should
be safe, retrieveable and conditioned into a passive state. Pre
11 September we felt that the physical conditions, the site conditions
that most met those three principles were above ground storage
on existing sites. Post 11 September—and it is not only
waste here, as we all know, but also the sites and plant themselves—we
have another safety consideration to take into account. We know
that deep disposal is scientifically flawed. It does not meet
those three principles. From a safety point of view from terrorist
attack, above ground storage may not meet that principle, so we
have to look again at where we can meet both sets of conditions
and fulfil those essential principles and from our point of view
we would certainly take part in investigating that sort of solution
even as we continued to make the case, if that were the circumstances
you suppose, of the Government deciding to proceed with new nuclear
build, and we would continue to make the case, as we have done
over the last 25 years, against new nuclear build.
Mr Borrow: Can I just confirm that is Greenpeace's
position as well.
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