Week 1, article #1

Title: Government's doomed £6bn plan to dispose of nuclear waste
By Steve Connor, Science Editor

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/governments-doomed-6bn-plan-to-dispose-of-nuclear-waste-2266047.html

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Summary of article

The UK Government had made a plan to tackle England’s plutonium waste (located in Sellafield, Cumbria). “It was meant to be reprocessed and sold” but after the Japanese tsunami the international trade of reprocessed nuclear fuel has been frozen. Japan has put the trade with England on hold because of the problems at Fukushima; however, the shipment was meant for Hamaoka.

“Other Japanese power companies have indicated that – they will not be taking any reprocessed fuel from Britain” for ten years. This is an expensive setback for England. It’s too expensive to store the plutonium and another plant for reprocessing will probably be built.

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My opinion

What I understand from this article is that Japan refuses all international trade because of one power plant failing, while all the others are still working perfectly. England processes plutonium waste into nuclear energy but because the trade between Japan has been frozen they cannot do anything with the nuclear energy. Alas, it's very expensive to store plutonium. I think Japan is being a bit too nervous about the nuclear energy and that because one power plant failed, that doesn't mean they need to shut off the other plants from trade too.