Brussels, November 2010

The best long-term for the storage of radioactive nuclear waste is to place it deep underground, the European Commission declared from Brussels.

The European Commission said the community gets about 30 percent of its energy from nuclear power stations, which generate almost 23,000 cubic feet of radioactive waste each year.

Much of this waste, the commission said, is stored at disposal centers near the surface, which the European government said was a short-term solution.

"As radioactive waste remains hazardous for up to 1 million years, the safest long-term solution is to dispose of it deep underground, where there is less chance of it being affected by accidents, fires or earthquakes," the commission said in a statement.

The European Union proposed a set of safety standards to manage underground radioactive waste repositories as part of a long-term strategy. The proposal includes radioactive waste generated in non-electrical sectors.

The regulations would make safety standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency legally binding for all European Union member states. Governments under the proposed measure would have to publish plans for their repositories for the commission to review.

The public would have to be informed on plans to build waste repositories and have the ability to respond to any proposals.

The commission said it found that the bulks of EU member states support regional laws regulating the management of nuclear waste.

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