Nuclear costs head for the moon

Yesterday, the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) released their annual report and, as surely as night follows day, the news is that the bill for decommissioning and cleaning up our existing nuclear plants is rising. And rising. And rising.

In fact, we could have funded two London Olympics just from the rises in the estimated costs over the past two years.

Although no one really has a precise figure (and the NDA admits it can't tell us what the final bill will be), the estimate now stands at around £73bn - about the same amount as the Apollo Moon Landings cost*.

There's more bad news for British Energy too. They announced yesterday that their reactors at Heysham and Hartlepool, currently off line because of faults, will now cost at least twice as much to repair – the bill will now be over £100m.

Their chairman said, with a straight face, that "output from our nuclear stations last year was disappointing." Somewhat unsurprisingly, this news appears to have dampened EdF’s appetite for buying BE.

(*Apologies for the Friday afternoon-related typo here - now fixed.)