Beyond Blunderdome

Secret plan would put U.K. nuke waste in "interim" domes for 1,000 years

The U.K.'s government-owned British Nuclear Fuels has developed an innovative solution to the nuclear-waste problem: procrastinate! The company wants to dump waste from nuclear power plants into giant domes designed to last up to 1,000 years -- at which point, presumably, future generations will have figured out a more permanent arrangement. BNFL will have closed-door meetings with officials in London this week to present plans for putting several such "millennium domes" around the country, buried just below ground under dirt or rubble. If executed, such a plan would overcome what has been a major barrier to expanding nuclear power in the U.K.: where to put the waste. Current wisdom holds that burying reactor leavings at least 900 feet underground is the best option (though no solution has actually been proved safe), but for 30 years Britain has been unable to decide on a domestic deep-storage site. BNFL calls the domes "interim long-term storage." Talk about inheriting your parents' mistakes.