Taxpayers face £56bn bill for clean-up of nuclear sites
Independent Online Edition > Business News : app1
By Saeed Shah
Published: 12 August 2005
The cost of dismantling and cleaning up Britain's civil nuclear power stations and infrastructure has escalated by £8bn to at least £56bn, the organisation given the task reported yesterday.
The increase in costs announced by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for the 20 nuclear sites that comes under its remit, was immediately seized upon by critics of nuclear energy, who said the figures demonstrated that the power source was not economically viable.
Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Nuclear power is an expensive liability with a long track record of huge cost overruns."
Supporters of the nuclear industry claimed, however, that the NDA study showed that costs involved were quantifiable and manageable. The Nuclear Industry Association said that nuclear power was needed in order to have a balanced mix of energy sources.
The Government has yet to make the politi-cally charged decision on whether to replace Britain's ageing nuclear power stations with a new generation of plants.
Andrew Stunell MP, the energy spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: said: "This [NDA report] is the first dose of official realism there has been over the fantastic costs of the nuclear industry. It blows away the argument for repeating the mistake of relying on nuclear power as the way ahead to tackle climate change."
Nuclear power currently generates more than a fifth of Britain's electricity. The NDA is in charge of the clean-up of the 11 "Magnox" power stations that were the earliest built in Britain - only four of these are still operational. It is also responsible for a range of other nuclear facilities involved in nuclear research and processing of fuel. British Energy also has nuclear power stations that do not fall under the NDA's authority.
The NDA was only set up in April. Its chairman, Sir Anthony Cleaver, said that the rise in the estimated cost of the clean-up operations, from a previous estimate of £48bn to £56bn, was due to greater understanding of the task and to common standards being adopted across all the sites, for the first time, to calculate costs.
Sir Anthony warned that even the £56bn figure could go up by a further £5bn to £10bn if stockpiles of plutonium were reclassified as liabilities, rather than their current status as assets.
The nuclear body also recommended that the time scale for the decommissioning of the Magnox stations be drastically shortened. Within 25 years, it aims to have cleared all of these for alternative uses. Previously, it had been planned to make the sites safe over 10 to 15 years and then to leave them for 60 or 70 years, before returning to finish the job. Even under the new plan, the clean-up of the huge Sellafield site would take 75 years, at a cost of £31.5bn, rather than over a century as was originally envisaged.
Sir Anthony said that taking a large gap between starting and completing the decommissioning process would mean leaving the problem to future generations.
"First of all, you obviously don't have that long period where you have the problem of security and safety in the storage of that material on the site. A major advantage in addition is the impact on employment. The current plan assumes after the initial period the level of employment on those sites goes down almost to zero, then suddenly 60 years later you have to re-emerge with the appropriate skills to finish the job," he said.
Next year, the NDA said it would invite bids from companies to begin the decommissioning process. Sir Anthony said that there were three current contractors in the sector but he wanted more competition to emerge.
The cost of dismantling and cleaning up Britain's civil nuclear power stations and infrastructure has escalated by £8bn to at least £56bn, the organisation given the task reported yesterday.
The increase in costs announced by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for the 20 nuclear sites that comes under its remit, was immediately seized upon by critics of nuclear energy, who said the figures demonstrated that the power source was not economically viable.
Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Nuclear power is an expensive liability with a long track record of huge cost overruns."
Supporters of the nuclear industry claimed, however, that the NDA study showed that costs involved were quantifiable and manageable. The Nuclear Industry Association said that nuclear power was needed in order to have a balanced mix of energy sources.
The Government has yet to make the politi-cally charged decision on whether to replace Britain's ageing nuclear power stations with a new generation of plants.
Andrew Stunell MP, the energy spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: said: "This [NDA report] is the first dose of official realism there has been over the fantastic costs of the nuclear industry. It blows away the argument for repeating the mistake of relying on nuclear power as the way ahead to tackle climate change."
Nuclear power currently generates more than a fifth of Britain's electricity. The NDA is in charge of the clean-up of the 11 "Magnox" power stations that were the earliest built in Britain - only four of these are still operational. It is also responsible for a range of other nuclear facilities involved in nuclear research and processing of fuel. British Energy also has nuclear power stations that do not fall under the NDA's authority.
The NDA was only set up in April. Its chairman, Sir Anthony Cleaver, said that the rise in the estimated cost of the clean-up operations, from a previous estimate of £48bn to £56bn, was due to greater understanding of the task and to common standards being adopted across all the sites, for the first time, to calculate costs.
Sir Anthony warned that even the £56bn figure could go up by a further £5bn to £10bn if stockpiles of plutonium were reclassified as liabilities, rather than their current status as assets.
The nuclear body also recommended that the time scale for the decommissioning of the Magnox stations be drastically shortened. Within 25 years, it aims to have cleared all of these for alternative uses. Previously, it had been planned to make the sites safe over 10 to 15 years and then to leave them for 60 or 70 years, before returning to finish the job. Even under the new plan, the clean-up of the huge Sellafield site would take 75 years, at a cost of £31.5bn, rather than over a century as was originally envisaged.
Sir Anthony said that taking a large gap between starting and completing the decommissioning process would mean leaving the problem to future generations.
"First of all, you obviously don't have that long period where you have the problem of security and safety in the storage of that material on the site. A major advantage in addition is the impact on employment. The current plan assumes after the initial period the level of employment on those sites goes down almost to zero, then suddenly 60 years later you have to re-emerge with the appropriate skills to finish the job," he said.
Next year, the NDA said it would invite bids from companies to begin the decommissioning process. Sir Anthony said that there were three current contractors in the sector but he wanted more competition to emerge.
By Saeed Shah
Published: 12 August 2005
The cost of dismantling and cleaning up Britain's civil nuclear power stations and infrastructure has escalated by £8bn to at least £56bn, the organisation given the task reported yesterday.
The increase in costs announced by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for the 20 nuclear sites that comes under its remit, was immediately seized upon by critics of nuclear energy, who said the figures demonstrated that the power source was not economically viable.
Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Nuclear power is an expensive liability with a long track record of huge cost overruns."
Supporters of the nuclear industry claimed, however, that the NDA study showed that costs involved were quantifiable and manageable. The Nuclear Industry Association said that nuclear power was needed in order to have a balanced mix of energy sources.
The Government has yet to make the politi-cally charged decision on whether to replace Britain's ageing nuclear power stations with a new generation of plants.
Andrew Stunell MP, the energy spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: said: "This [NDA report] is the first dose of official realism there has been over the fantastic costs of the nuclear industry. It blows away the argument for repeating the mistake of relying on nuclear power as the way ahead to tackle climate change."
Nuclear power currently generates more than a fifth of Britain's electricity. The NDA is in charge of the clean-up of the 11 "Magnox" power stations that were the earliest built in Britain - only four of these are still operational. It is also responsible for a range of other nuclear facilities involved in nuclear research and processing of fuel. British Energy also has nuclear power stations that do not fall under the NDA's authority.
The NDA was only set up in April. Its chairman, Sir Anthony Cleaver, said that the rise in the estimated cost of the clean-up operations, from a previous estimate of £48bn to £56bn, was due to greater understanding of the task and to common standards being adopted across all the sites, for the first time, to calculate costs.
Sir Anthony warned that even the £56bn figure could go up by a further £5bn to £10bn if stockpiles of plutonium were reclassified as liabilities, rather than their current status as assets.
The nuclear body also recommended that the time scale for the decommissioning of the Magnox stations be drastically shortened. Within 25 years, it aims to have cleared all of these for alternative uses. Previously, it had been planned to make the sites safe over 10 to 15 years and then to leave them for 60 or 70 years, before returning to finish the job. Even under the new plan, the clean-up of the huge Sellafield site would take 75 years, at a cost of £31.5bn, rather than over a century as was originally envisaged.
Sir Anthony said that taking a large gap between starting and completing the decommissioning process would mean leaving the problem to future generations.
"First of all, you obviously don't have that long period where you have the problem of security and safety in the storage of that material on the site. A major advantage in addition is the impact on employment. The current plan assumes after the initial period the level of employment on those sites goes down almost to zero, then suddenly 60 years later you have to re-emerge with the appropriate skills to finish the job," he said.
Next year, the NDA said it would invite bids from companies to begin the decommissioning process. Sir Anthony said that there were three current contractors in the sector but he wanted more competition to emerge.
The cost of dismantling and cleaning up Britain's civil nuclear power stations and infrastructure has escalated by £8bn to at least £56bn, the organisation given the task reported yesterday.
The increase in costs announced by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for the 20 nuclear sites that comes under its remit, was immediately seized upon by critics of nuclear energy, who said the figures demonstrated that the power source was not economically viable.
Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Nuclear power is an expensive liability with a long track record of huge cost overruns."
Supporters of the nuclear industry claimed, however, that the NDA study showed that costs involved were quantifiable and manageable. The Nuclear Industry Association said that nuclear power was needed in order to have a balanced mix of energy sources.
The Government has yet to make the politi-cally charged decision on whether to replace Britain's ageing nuclear power stations with a new generation of plants.
Andrew Stunell MP, the energy spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: said: "This [NDA report] is the first dose of official realism there has been over the fantastic costs of the nuclear industry. It blows away the argument for repeating the mistake of relying on nuclear power as the way ahead to tackle climate change."
Nuclear power currently generates more than a fifth of Britain's electricity. The NDA is in charge of the clean-up of the 11 "Magnox" power stations that were the earliest built in Britain - only four of these are still operational. It is also responsible for a range of other nuclear facilities involved in nuclear research and processing of fuel. British Energy also has nuclear power stations that do not fall under the NDA's authority.
The NDA was only set up in April. Its chairman, Sir Anthony Cleaver, said that the rise in the estimated cost of the clean-up operations, from a previous estimate of £48bn to £56bn, was due to greater understanding of the task and to common standards being adopted across all the sites, for the first time, to calculate costs.
Sir Anthony warned that even the £56bn figure could go up by a further £5bn to £10bn if stockpiles of plutonium were reclassified as liabilities, rather than their current status as assets.
The nuclear body also recommended that the time scale for the decommissioning of the Magnox stations be drastically shortened. Within 25 years, it aims to have cleared all of these for alternative uses. Previously, it had been planned to make the sites safe over 10 to 15 years and then to leave them for 60 or 70 years, before returning to finish the job. Even under the new plan, the clean-up of the huge Sellafield site would take 75 years, at a cost of £31.5bn, rather than over a century as was originally envisaged.
Sir Anthony said that taking a large gap between starting and completing the decommissioning process would mean leaving the problem to future generations.
"First of all, you obviously don't have that long period where you have the problem of security and safety in the storage of that material on the site. A major advantage in addition is the impact on employment. The current plan assumes after the initial period the level of employment on those sites goes down almost to zero, then suddenly 60 years later you have to re-emerge with the appropriate skills to finish the job," he said.
Next year, the NDA said it would invite bids from companies to begin the decommissioning process. Sir Anthony said that there were three current contractors in the sector but he wanted more competition to emerge.
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