NEW SCIENTIST 13 December 1997 Out in the open A shaft full of radioactive debris at the Dounreay nuclear plant on the north coast of Scotland is probably one of the worst mistakes the British nuclear industry has ever made. For 18 years after 1959, a simple hole dug some 65 metres in the cliff was used to dump more than 1000 tonnes of nuclear junk, including plutonium, highly enriched uranium, sodium and potassium. No one gave it too much thought, until early one morning in May 1977. It exploded, showering lethally radioactive particles onto the cliff top. Although Dounreay's operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), immediately stopped using the shaft as a waste dump, it was another 18 years before it owned up to the scale of the problem that remained. And then only when forced to do so by two government advisory committees (This Week, 24 June 1995, p 6). The shaft is a serious headache and cannot simply be left as it is. It could explode again, or crumble into the sea. It could be the source of the 200 dangerously radioactive particles that have been found on local beaches and in sandbanks under the sea since 1984, and which led in October to a government ban on fishing within 2 kilometres of Dounreay. Now at last, it seems that the UKAEA has come up with a solution. Reports this week suggest the UKAEA is urging the Department of Trade and Industry to fund a #500-million programme to take the waste out of the shaft. The plan is to retrieve, treat, repackage and then store the debris in containers above the ground. This would clearly be a step forward. The other option of attempting to seal the shaft by surrounding it with concrete might be cheaper, but it could never guarantee public safety. The government, which is expected to respond to the plan before Christmas, should give it the green light. But even if that happens, the real problem would still not be solved. Britain has no strategy for what should be done with any of its nuclear waste in the long term. Since plans for a deep repository put forward by the nuclear waste company Nirex collapsed in disarray in the dying days of the last government, ministers have remained curiously silent on this issue. It is time they broke their silence. ---