Nuclear clean-up bill £70bn and rising

SLG · Nuclear clean-up bill £70bn and rising

Nuclear clean-up bill £70bn and rising, MPs told
DEBORAH SUMMERS

THE cost of nuclear decommissioning and clean-up is likely to rise "significantly" from the current £70.2bn estimate, MPs warned yesterday.
The Commons Trade and Industry Committee expressed concern at the spiralling bill for the disposal of nuclear waste at Dounreay, and south of the border at Sellafield.
The estimated cost for the disposal of the UK's total civil nuclear operations has already risen from £48bn in 2002 after new information emerged about what is in storage and a review of efficiency savings by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
The committee said it expected the figure to continue to rise as a result of further investigations into storage facilities.
Mike Weir, SNP MP for Angus and a member of the committee, said: "The problem is no-one really knows how much waste is at these sites. At Dounreay, for example, there is a shaft that has been used for decades to dump nuclear waste, but there are no accurate records of what's in it or how much.
"At Hunterston, there are some pits that have been used in the same way, which makes it almost impossible to tell how much the clean-up will cost."
The apparent reluctance of the nuclear industry to continue reprocessing spent fuel - because it is more expensive than buying new uranium - would also contribute to growing costs, the committee said.
Sir Anthony Cleaver, NDA chairman, told MPs on the committee that there was a "much better picture" of the situation at Sellafield and Dounreay following work over the past year. But he admitted it would be "premature" to say that the NDA, set up in April 2005, had a "fully detailed characterisation" of what was in storage.
In the report published yesterday, the committee said: "We are disappointed, but not surprised, that considerable uncertainty still remains in relation to the cost of decommissioning and clean-up.
"The legacy of civil nuclear liabilities has been accumulating for 60 years; some of it was created at a time of great military urgency and when the science was less understood; and it is no fault of the NDA that, in its short life, it has been unable to discover the exact nature and quantity of the nuclear material on its sites.
"The public civil nuclear liability for waste has risen from £48bn in 2002, to £56bn in 2004, to £70.2bn in 2006. Thus the overall quantified costs of £70.2bn seem to us likely to rise significantly."
Conservative MP Peter Luff, the committee's chairman, said the situation could diminish support for a new generation of nuclear power stations.
"At a time when the government is committing to increasing nuclear power it seems very unfortunate there is this uncertainty in dealing with the existing waste. It's not going to do anything for public confidence in nuclear power."

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/68097.html