The Canadian government has approved a plan for a below-ground nuclear waste depot that is backed by the nuclear power industry but branded by environmentalists as dangerous. Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said Thursday that the government had accepted a plan to bury radioactive waste from nuclear plants in deep subterranean storage depots after first temporarily storing it in shallower underground facilities.
"This is a safe, long-term approach," Lunn said in a statement.
The storage method "will ensure the used nuclear fuel is monitored and retrievable," he said.
The waste will come from Canada's 22 nuclear plants, 18 of which are now in service, providing 15 percent of the power in the entire country and 54 percent in Ontario province.
According to Greenpeace, there is already some 40,000 tonnes of nuclear waste held in the plants.
Greenpeace's David Martin called the plan "the worst of all worlds."
"Ultimately I don't think the nuclear industry can guarantee that this extremely long-lived waste can be kept isolated from the environment," Martin told AFP.
"It's simply not realistic to say that these poisons can be contained for that long, and that's why we say that the first priority should be the phasing out of nuclear power, not the phasing in of a radioactive waste dump."
Source: Agence France-Presse
