The Hindu : International : Italy's nuclear waste for U.K.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 06, 2005

International

International

Italy's nuclear waste for U.K.

London: Italy is hoping to export 99 per cent of its nuclear waste to the U.K. after public demonstrations made it impossible to find a suitable site on Italian soil. The Italian Government has 235 tonnes of spent fuel from the country's long decommissioned reactors in deteriorating stores. Contracts worth £200 million are on offer to the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) at Cumbria, northern England, to reprocess the nuclear fuel, provided the U.K. keeps the waste and the plutonium and uranium that would be recovered. The Italian nuclear industry was shut down after the Chernobyl disaster. The British Government said retaining waste from half a dozen customers of BNFL would increase the revenue of the state-owned company by £680 million, and this would go towards the £2 billion a year clean-up costs. Any plan to import waste from Italy is bound to be controversial because the UK has failed to find its own depository for waste and is not expected to have one for another 30 years.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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