Nuclear power in Europe

The credibility of the nuclear industry was shaken last night after the estimated cost of cleaning up Britain’s atomic waste was raised by a further £10bn.

The latest clean-up estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn should rise to £83bn. But the agency insisted that £10bn of income from generating and fuel reprocessing plants should also be taken into account. (more…)

BUSINESS is being encouraged to capitalise on the demise of Wales’ nuclear power stations.

The Welsh Assembly Government is working with Magnox North to develop a local supply chain and identify a range of potential opportunities for local businesses.

It is hoped the measures will help businesses raise their game to ensure they have the capacity and capability to benefit from the decommissioning of nuclear power stations in the region. (more…)

The £73 billion cost of decommissioning nuclear power sites could be increased “significantly”, the head of an influential committee of MPs have warned.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said the cost of work over the next five years had already risen “steeply.” (more…)

Taxpayers are being forced to indemnify the winner of the £7.5bn contract to decommission the highly toxic Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria against an accident because the bidders are based overseas. The preferred consortium will be announced on Friday.

Four consortia are vying for the contract, which could be worth £20bn over its lifetime, including US engineering giants Fluor, Bechtel, Washington Group and CH2M Hill, as well as French nuclear power group Areva and the Japanese firm Toshiba. UK companies Serco and Amec are also members of overseas-led consortia. (more…)

The company faces losses running into millions of pounds if the workforce decides to strike.

The Sellafield Ltd employees will be asked to back their unions’ call for full-scale industrial action.

Yesterday Sellafield’s boss Barry Snelson made a personal plea for the workers not to strike and to consider carefully the damage it could do at a sensitive time. (more…)

WEST Cumbria – and Copeland in particular – is likely to become more dependent than ever on the nuclear industry and we say that in full light of all the on-going efforts to diversify our economy.

So with all the signs pointing to another strike at the area’s biggest employer and economic bread earner – Sellafield – it has to be worrying. (more…)

Site owner the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will give the plant a record £1.2bn to spend in the next financial year, but insiders say the sum is not enough.

In order to plug the gap, some projects will be put off to a later date, while contractors have been warned they will be expected to cut costs and boost efficiency. (more…)

Energysolutions and its partner Toshiba have offered to kick start the UK’s stalled nuclear clean-up programme - in return for being given the sites to build a new fleet of reactors.

At present French utility company EDF is leading the race to buy nuclear generator British Energy and start the new-build programme. But the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the public sector’s old nuclear sites, has also put these on the block for firms interested in building new reactors. (more…)

The way in which the £73bn clean-up of Britain’s nuclear sites is funded is unsustainable and in urgent need of reform, the government is warned today.

More taxpayers’ money is also likely to be required to finance the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), according to the cross-party business and enterprise committee of MPs. (more…)

The Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield has restarted commercial operations three years after it was closed following a radioactive leak - a development that should ease the funding crisis at the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, or Thorp, at the nuclear complex in west Cumbria, is a large source of income for the owner NDA, which is responsible for cleaning up the UK’s nuclear reactor sites and dealing with radioactive waste. (more…)