UK Nuclear Clean-up Cost Up To £56bn  

The BBC reports on the cost to decommission Britains nuclear power plants. Unsurprisingly, its astronomical.

Decommissioning the UK's ageing nuclear power stations will cost billions of pounds more than originally expected. In its first report, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates that £56bn will have to be spent cleaning up 20 sites. NDA wants to speed up the clean-up, including that of the ageing Magnox plants, from 125 years to 25 years.

The decommissioning of the Sellafield and Dounreay sites was described as "our number one decommissioning priority" by the NDA. A leak was discovered in April at the Sellafield, in Cumbria, but it could have occurred as long ago as August 2004. An investigation in June found "significant deficiencies", and ordered improvements to be introduced by October. Inadequate historic records mean that the precise contents of Sellafield and Dounreay are unknown. "Consequently, we have yet to choose the best way to retrieve the materials safely and without endangering the environment," NDA said.

Among issues that the authority is looking at is the need for an alternative for Drigg in Cumbria, which is the only place in the country where low-level nuclear waste can be stored in perpetuity. Drigg is about 1km from a shoreline that is eroding at the rate of 1 metre a year.

Former environment minister Michael Meacher expressed concern at the cost of the decommissioning and questioned plans for future nuclear builds. "Nuclear is neither necessary nor desirable to meet our climate change targets. "It involves huge economic, military and environmental risks that should be avoided. The risks are the long-term risks of storage.

Its interesting to see how many plants are close to the sea. If you think about that map of a future Britain that showed the land still above water after occean level rises under some of the more extreme global warming scenarios, most of these would be flooded.