However it is not at all clear that this facility will ever be constructed. There are serious concerns that fissures in the rocks would lead to radiation leaking out over the long periods of time involved in storage. If the underground store is delayed the waste may be removed from the submarines and packaged somewhere, possibly on site in the dockyards, until the store is ready. Alternatively the MoD may still be considering removing the whole reactor compartment and storing it on land. Basically the MoD still do not appear to know what they will do with the huge quantities of nuclear waste which the nuclear powered submarine programme will leave behind.
Further information is available on the safety of nuclear submarines .
The seriousness of the problems with all the older British nuclear powered submarines was indicated in the diaries of Alan Clark, who at the time was a junior defence minister. It appears that Mrs Thatcher overruled her nuclear safety advisers. This could affect every nuclear-powered submarine. The Government continued to deploy Polaris submarines on patrol from January 1990 to May 1996, knowing that there was a serious defect affecting their nuclear reactors. From 1990 through 1992 they were using these boats when they didn' t even know exactly what the problem was.