Last updated at 12:14, Thursday, 12 April 2012

THERE can be no doubt that Copeland has a major part to play in the country’s move towards producing low-carbon environmentally-friendly electricity.

Nuclear is seen as one solution. The Department of Energy & Climate Change has recognised as much in opting for the Moorside nuclear power station site around Sellafield as one of its chosen sites for generating low-carbon energy.

But while it might not be as freely admitted by the Government, there is another nuclear matter which to many is far from green and pleasant. It comes under the official name of GDF – geological disposal facility.

We can be sure it’s already exercising minds in Whitehall, and we suspect will assume a greater national importance in the near future.

In layman’s terms, GDF is an underground repository for burying higher levels of the nation’s nuclear waste. Though most the nasty stuff to be disposed of is produced at Sellafield, finding somewhere to put it has become a national problem – and a solution has to be found sooner or later, not least because producing ‘green’ electricity the nuclear way will not come without a price.

That price is how to best dispose of all the waste that will arise on top of what’s already stored on the surface at Sellafield.

The news this week that three councils representing parishes closest to Sellafield are not in favour of West Cumbria playing any part (not yet, at least) in a search to find somewhere to put the waste is a bit of a bombshell which might well have a somewhat seismic impact on forming or influencing opinion. Being so close to Sellafield, these are villages which would be the most affected by the prospect of having a repository anywhere on their doorstep.

We doubt whether new energy secretary Ed Davey will have heard the news on his first visit to Sellafield this week – but he’ll know all about it soon enough.

Gosforth, Beckermet and Ponsonby have all given an initial thumbs down in their response to the extensive consultation recently carried out by West Cumbria’s Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership. It is not the Partnership’s job to come up with the solution – theirs is to carry through a process aimed at laying out all the facts, present its own opinions and in turn give Cumbrians the chance to air their own views for or against, then report back as it soon will from the consultation responses, to the relevant local authorities.

It is then that someone will have to bite the bullet and decide whether there is merit in going ahead with a serious search.

If there is a strong desire for a widespread referendum (in West Cumbria) as opposed to a limited opinion poll, so be it.

Nirex dug a hole for itself (pardon the pun) in failing dismally to convince the public (and eventually the local councils) that it had a case just to build a rock laboratory at Longlands, near Gosforth, its preferred UK location for a repository.

The views of Gosforth, Beckermet and Ponsonby are of the utmost importance. These strong-willed community minded parishes won’t be seduced or cajoled into any change of heart. For now they are saying a simple ‘no’ – it might not be an indefinite thumbs down, but the villages need to hear better arguments and assurance over a whole ranges of issues, not least community benefits.

This is no case of the NIMBY factor – not in my back yard. Theirs are understandable concerns and they are right to raise them.

First published at 12:00, Thursday, 12 April 2012
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk