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The French government has announced plans to create a deep storage centre and two underground laboratories for studying the disposal of nuclear waste in clay and granite localities.

But critics say the plans reveal the government's long-term intentions on the disposal of nuclear waste, and as such conflict with a resolution to keep such decisions open.

The plans, revealed last week, are among a collection of measures relating to the French nuclear industry, including an attempt to improve the transparency of the industry and the organization of its security.

The laboratory to investigate clay sites will be set up at Bure in Meuse, eastern France. According to the National Agency for the Management of Radioactive Waste (ANDRA), it will begin operation in 2003.

The location of the second laboratory, on a granite site, has not yet been chosen. La Chapelle-Bâton in Vienne, western France, near Poitiers, has been suggested by ANDRA, but is no longer being considered. Preliminary studies showed that the geological characteristics of the site will probably prevent it being used for waste disposal.

The underground repository, which will be less than 20 metres deep, is likely to be set up in Gard in the south of France, after the site has been “scientifically verified”.

A report from the Commission on Atomic Energy has indicated that this type of storage is possible. But it “should be accompanied by a programme of research, in particular on methods of cooling”.

The Green party, who are members of France's coalition government, sees the decision to drop La Chapelle-Bâton as an indication that the two laboratories will be not only the location of preliminary studies but also the site of future waste-disposal facilities.

The Greens have accused the government of giving in to the nuclear lobby on this matter. But the government insists that it plans to stick to the ‘loi Bataille’ of 1991, and the concept of ‘reversibility’, maintaining the chance of keeping access to the stored waste.

The 1991 law specifies that all options for storing nuclear waste should be investigated to ensure that parliament is in full possession of the facts about alternatives when it chooses the method of storage in 2006 (see Nature 390, 322; 1997).

A report of the National Assessment Committee, an independent body, has established a clear link between the type of waste and the type of storage. In particular, the report specifies that “deep storage, involving the triple barrier of a container, a constructed barrier, and then geological barriers, makes reversibility very difficult, if not improbable in the long term”. It also argues that “reversibility is easy in subsurface repositories”.

Despite this, ecologists are concerned that both the committee and the government are speaking about “definite storage” for the so-called ‘B wastes’ with medium radioactivity and long lifetimes, without specifying precisely what this means, but contrasting it to subsurface storage.