This is the story of the world's most dangerous waste problem… The frozen country pioneering a solution...
REPORTER: Do you think it’s going to be safe?...
And the local councils facing a critical decision.
MAN: The government are desperate and it's just the wrong solution.
It starts here amidst the beauty of England's Lake District. More than 300 people have gathered for a walk to protest a search for a nuclear waste dump site in this area.
WOMAN: Never done anything like this before. Never really go into politics, but this time we have to.
MUIR LACHLAN: Just look around - what sick person could ever conceive an idea? That is what is so frightening.
The next step in the search for a nuclear dump site - known as Stage 4 - is computer modelling of Cumbria's geology to see if it's suitable. The British Government has been calling on councils to volunteer for the dump site project and the local councils here have agreed to take part. In four days' time, they must decide whether to go on to Stage 4.
ROGER PARKER: We need people to consider what they are going to do to this place. They need to keep off. Thank you very much for coming. Please enjoy the rest of the day and enjoy the walk. Thank you.
Roger Parker is one of the protest walk's organisers.
ROGER PARKER: When they move on to the construction that is going to be huge, the spoil that comes out as they're tunnelling - one estimate has been that it will take a lorry, a 16-wheel lorry, along our roads, every three minutes for something like 30 years.
Roger and his wife run a B&B from a converted farmhouse within sight of Ennerdale Fell. They are understandably worried that a radioactive waste dump will destroy the Lakes' tourism industry.
ROGER PARKER: People are already hearing this is happening and people will stop coming before they break ground. This is an undeveloped, deprived area and farmers have been encouraged to diversify and move into the tourism industry and they're trying to cut it off at the knees.
PETER CLEMENTS, UNION ORGANISER: The scaremongers who, by the way, a lot are funded from people who don't live in Cumbria, but they can’t understand them saying no without finding out the facts.
Peter Clements is a union organiser at Sellafield Nuclear Plant. Britain's Sellafield sits a few miles from the edge of the Lake District National Park. It currently houses 70% of Britain's nuclear waste in interim storage. This nondescript building contains the high level of radioactive waste, some of it dating back 60 years to the development of the bomb. The old power plant is being dismantled, though - Sellafield no longer generates electricity.
PETER CLEMENTS: The benefits of getting a dump, and the obvious jobs, it will kickstart the nuclear new build, because we - in order to have nuclear new build we have to have a way of dealing with the waste product.
A few days out from the council decision, Peter Clements' pro-nuclear union has organised a special conference.
COUNCILLOR: This is the last chance debate.
The meeting is aimed at persuading any wavering councillors in attendance.
COUNCILLOR: Please welcome Jamie Reed.
Leading the charge as the local MP, Jamie Reed.
JAMIE REED, MP: Put simply, Cumbria, West Cumbria in particular, stands at the crossroads. If we make the right decisions, then our future will be characterised by unprecedented economic opportunity.
Jamie Reed is a keen proponent of the nuclear industry and sees no reason to exclude the national park from hosting a nuclear waste dump.
JAMIE REED: I don't see why making this industry safer, making this industry better for the environment, better for people, should in any way affect tourism at all.
Outside the conference, anti-dump protesters are making their own bid for the councillors' attention. They fear that people inside are hoping to trade the Lake District's sanctity for a few hundred jobs, but Jamie Reed feels a moral obligation.
JAMIE REED: I'm a third generation nuclear worker, I used to work on the site before I went into politics. My grandfather's generation didn't know it was a problem to solve radioactive waste. My father's generation knew there was a problem, but didn't solve it. My generation knows there is a problem and we know how to solve it, we know what the consequences are if failing to solve this. I think it's morally wrong, morally indefensible, it’s morally corrupt to leave this problem for our children when we know how to solve it.
COUNCILLOR: So my view is that geological disposal is certainly safe.
What impact the conference is having on the councillors is unknown. There is a planning decision and councillors can't express an opinion beforehand without automatically excluding themselves from the vote. But the unionists I speak to seem quietly confident of a green light.
With the two sides locked in battle in the UK, I've come to Finland to find out how they have dealt with the same dilemma. Here I find the only underground high level radioactive waste dump under construction anywhere in the world. It's known as Onkalo.
The length of the tunnel is 5km. The Onkalo Tunnel cork screws into the earth, decending to a depth of 455m. Permission to build a radioactive waste dump here was granted 33 years ago after a debate like the one under way in Britain.
JUHA JAAKKOLA (Translation): People often said at council discussions that they had lost sleep trying to reach a decision, one that would contribute towards the very best solution.
Juha Jaakkola was the council leader when the company Posiva was searching for a site.
JUHA JAAKKOLA (Translation): Initially there was competition between five sites, as Loviisa is another power plant town, the general consensus was that it was between those two.
The council approved Onkalo 21 votes to 7. Juha Jaakkola was one of the seven votes against. This retirement home, funded by a real estate deal with Posiva is one of the few tangible benefits for the town. It seems trustworthiness, not money, was the key to the waste company's success.
JUHA JAAKKOLA (Translation): There is no doubt that they and the government regulator STUK and the planning body and the consulting firms, there is no doubt that they aim to do their best with no question on the part of the locals about their honesty.
At the bottom of Onkalo, excavation is still under way. They're now building the test galleries where engineers are trying to perfect the disposal technique. Geologist Annti Joutsen shows us around. The idea is to place the spent fuel rods inside steel canisters, which are then encased in copper to prevent rusting. They will then be placed into holes like these and the entire tunnel system will be back-filled with bentonite clay and hopefully left untouched for 100,000 years. Long enough that the engineering has to take into account the pressure from the next Ice Age, when this whole region will be buried under 2-3km of ice.
ANNTI JOUTSEN, GEOLOGIST: We have room for 12,000 tonnes of uranium here. It is going to be a few thousands of canisters.
REPORTER: Do you think it will be safe?
ANNTI JOUTSEN: Yes. That is something we are trying to show for the Finnish officials, that it is going to be safe.
REPORTER: It is an extraordinary thing though for humans to even think about, trying to engineer something to last 100,000 years?
ANNTI JOUTSEN: Yes, that's true. It is really extraordinary project, because of that.
REPORTER: Do you think it's possible, or too much to think we can build something to last that long?
ANNTI JOUTSEN: Well, if we think about the time scale - no major geological events such as major earthquakes have occurred here in over one billion years. In that sense if you talk about 100,000 years, it's not so much.
Back in the Lake District, as the council vote nears, the peaceful vistas hide a growing tension.
REPORTER: How did you sleep?
CHRIS LANE: It's been terrible, ever since I found out about it and I wake up every morning with the dread that I'm going to have to go through another day of thinking about this whole thing. We're doing the best we can to try to stop something that should not be happening. It's taking its toll. I am absolutely, I'm bloody shattered actually.
Chris Lane has lived here on the edge of Ennerdale Lake for 26 years. He says he only heard about the nuclear waste dump proposal four months ago through a friend.
CHRIS LANE: The message hasn't got through, not just to me and my family, but to everybody else that I've spoken to. There are people in the valley here, right up to and including the date of the votes, had no idea.
The lack of consultation has left him with little faith, but the government promised the opportunity to withdraw at a later date.
REPORTER: Does that reassure you?
CHRIS LANE: Not in the slightest. The government are desperate - apart from West Cumbria, no other council volunteered. We are stuck with one volunteer community, with a poor geology, but with a workforce that is very dependent on the nuclear industry and quite rightly with worried about their jobs and about the economy of the West Coast and it's just the wrong solution.
REPORTER: What's your feeling about tomorrow and the vote?
PETER CLEMENTS: I'm optimistic. I think, I hope, that the councillors will vote the right way.
ROGER PARKER: If you asked me to put a figure on it, I would probably say it's 50/ 50 at best.
The day of the vote and inside the council chambers, the mood is tense. With the council leader urging people to remember the decision is solely whether to proceed to the next stage and nothing more.
COUNCILLOR: I must insist we are not here to debate on whether we should approve this GDF in Cumbria.
From that point on, cameras are excluded from the chambers. Outside the council's gates, the small crowd has gathered in the drizzle to listen to the proceedings.
SOUND: ...fairly confident that an acceptable process can be put in place if we move forward with the next process.
Surprisingly, as the session goes on, more and more of the councillors talk of safety concerns, doubts about Cumbria's geological suitability and fears of becoming tangled in a process they have no legal right to withdraw from.
SOUND: I will not be a puppet dancing to the government's tune.
Finally, after nearly four hours of deliberation, the moment of truth arrives.
SOUND: All those in favour of withdrawing from stage 4 at the moment please. Put your hand up, please. And all those against - right, the motion to withdraw is carried. Can you sit down for a moment please? Before everyone disappears...
WOMAN: Absolutely jubilant. It's a great vote for the environment, for democracy, for local people. And whatever they do with this nuclear waste, please may it be somewhere safe.
CHRIS LANE: I'm very pleased. I'm very pleased. I'm relieved and I might even sleep tonight.
ROGER PARKER: If we can say one thing, that's one thing we've done, brought the spotlight onto that.
In Ennerdale’s community pub, it's a night for quite celebration. After months of uncertainty and a crash course in grass-roots campaigning, the people of Ennerdale are savouring the sense that they have helped save one of the world's national treasures.
REPORTER: Do you think there ever will be a nuclear waste dump in the Lake District?
CHRIS LANE: No. I did doubt it at the start of this. I think that's it.
For Britain's growing stockpile of radioactive waste, there's still no lasting solution.
ANJALI RAO: Britain's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority confirmed to Aaron that they are hopeful another community will volunteer to host the nuclear waste dump.
Reporter/Camera/Editor
AARON THOMAS
Producer
VICTORIA STROBL
Researchers
MELANIE MORRISON
EVE LUCAS
Interpreter
MARKO MIKKOLA
Translations/Subtitling
ESA JASKE
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN