1.   Plans to set up a deep repository for nuclear waste near Sellafield in Cumbria are attracting growing criticism.

2.   Uncertainty about the safety of the deep repository has implications for the Thorp project, which is still awaiting permission to start operations from HM Inspectorate of Pollution.

3.   And that in turn means most of the waste will not have to be isolated in a deep repository but can be disposed in the grout vaults at Hanford.

4.   Instead, the deep repository might be dug in granite, where migration of materials would be slower and more difficult.

5.   Reprocessing would by no means obviate the need for a deep repository for the plutonium residues that would remain at the end of the reprocessing cycle.