Member Article

Cost of decommissioning Sellafield rockets

The cost of decommissioning the Cumbrian nuclear reprocessing site, Sellafield has increased by a further £5 billion to £53 billion.

The information comes from the National Audit Office’s latest report.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority which owns the Sellafield site have said its estimate of the lifetime costs for decommissioning at Sellafield has been increasing sharply in recent years.

It says this is because the work has cost more and taken longer than originally planned.

The Authority has said that the increase in the lifetime cost estimates are mainly because of its better understanding of the scale and nature of the risks and challenges of the site, describing Sellafield as “the UK’s largest and most hazardous nuclear site,” within the report.

The site includes two nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, waste management and storage plants and storage containing waste from the UK’s first nuclear plants.

Sellafield’s press office said it had no comment on the matter at this moment.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, had the following statement: “The National Audit Office’s latest report points to improved performance at Sellafield in the last 12 months.

“The NDA has continued to report openly about the challenges faced in tackling the historic legacy at Europe’s most complex and hazardous nuclear site.

“The primary reason for increases in costs and schedule is because we now have a better understanding of the technical approach necessary to tackle these unique facilities that date back to the 1940s and 50s.

“Before deciding whether to cancel the contract with Nuclear Management Partners the NDA needed to first satisfy itself and Government that it had an alternative model that would give greater confidence of delivering progress and value for money.

“We have been through a thorough process to underpin that important decision.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .