Radioactive waste could be sent abroad
31. jan. 2013 13.43 EnglishThe plan was to bury 10,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste in Denmark, but it appears that parliamentary politicians have changed their minds.
According to the daily newspaper Politiken, politicians in the Danish Parliament now want to send the radioactive waste abroad for disposal, assuming they can find a country capable of dealing with it.
“We will enter into actual negotiations if we can export it all and if all applicable conventions can be observed,” said Flemming Møller Mortensen, health spokesman for the Social Democrats. “Compared to other countries in Europe, we have very small quantities of radioactive waste in Denmark. If there is a country which has the capacity to handle it, it’s a reasonable proposition.”
Danish municipalities designated for final repository
In 2003, the Danish Parliament unanimously resolved that Risø research centre (since merged with the Technical University of Denmark and renamed the Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy) should establish a final repository for radioactive waste somewhere in Denmark on the grounds that each generation should clean up after itself.
In 2011, six potential locations for the final repository were identified in five different municipalities. At the start of this year, the field of candidates was to be narrowed down to two, but fierce opposition from both the municipalities in question and several parties delayed implementation of this plan.
A majority in the Danish Parliament recently postponed the decision until the end of the year and now wants to expand the investigations to include the option of exporting the radioactive waste.
Minister: “Of course I’m listening”
In an e-mail to Politiken, Minister for Health Astrid Krag (SPP) stated that the government sets great store by the fact that there is still broad agreement among the parliamentary parties on the handling of the Risø waste.
“Of course I’m listening, given that several parties want us to investigate the option of disposing of all the waste abroad,” wrote Krag.
Benedikte Kiær, spokeswoman on health for the Conservative Party, believes that a change of opinion is perfectly natural.
“We shouldn’t pigheadedly insist that it has to be us that takes care of the waste we produce,” she told Politiken.
The Red-Green Alliance has rejected from the outset the idea of exporting the radioactive waste and instead advocates leaving the waste at Risø in a temporary repository.