Blogposts tagged 'Decommissioning'

Briefing: Chaos in the UK's nuclear Clean-up Industry

Publication date:  24 July, 2008

A Greenpeace briefing on the government's internal audit ("Response to the Business and Enterprise Committee Funding the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority") and follow up report ("NDA Budgetting Shortfall 2007-08: Lesson Learned"). These reports expose massive cost overruns, amateurish bureaucratic cock-ups and complete chaos within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority - the organisation charged with cleaning up the UK's lethal radioactive legacy.

Download the report:
Article tagged as: decommissioning, NDA, nuclear power, reports

Black Tuesday blights Brown's nuclear vision

Posted by jossc - 29 May 2008 at 10:32am - 8 Comments

Major ongoing problems at Sellafield have been hidden from the public

Sellafield: major ongoing problems have been hidden from the public

Yesterday, Gordon Brown felt compelled to go on the record to announce that the UK needs to not only maintain but to increase its nuclear power capacity. And yet the nuclear industry is not exactly hale and hearty because, let's face it, it's been a terrible week for the poor dears.

Article tagged as: british energy, decommissioning, NDA, nuclear power, nuclear waste, sellafield, sizewell

Cost of nuclear waste could kill off plans for a new fleet

Posted by tracy - 27 March 2008 at 11:01am - 10 Comments

The government says the decision on building new nuclear reactors will be entirely up to the market and utility companies will have to pay their "full share" of decommissioning and waste management costs, but Gordon Brown is going to have to cook the books like a cordon bleu chef he if wants to attract new investment.

While Brown teams up with French president Nicholas Sarkozy at Emirates stadium today to push through his dream of a new nuclear era, a government advisor is publishing a new cost analysis that suggests energy companies cannot be charged a fully commercial price for waste disposal without "killing the prospect" of a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Article tagged as: climate change, decommissioning, nuclear, nuclear power, nuclear waste, radioactive waste

Out of commission

Posted by John Sauven - 31 January 2008 at 9:43am - 10 Comments

The cost of taking nuclear plants out of service is spiralling out of control. Is this just poor financial management, or does it have wider implications? Written by Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauven for comment is free.

This week, the National Audit Office released its damning assessment of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's (NDA) ability to estimate the true financial cost of decommissioning and cleaning up the UK's fleet of ailing reactors and contaminated facilities. As costs for decommissioning appear to spiral out of control - rising sharply from £56bn to £73bn over just a few years - the burden on the taxpayer grows ever more. And it doesn't end there. The NDA has also been made responsible for disposing of the UK's stockpile of legacy wastes which is estimated at an additional £10-20bn. The industry argues these increased costs have arisen in the face of "significant challenges", but the echoes from this announcement are all too familiar from a sector that has been plagued with industrial and financial incompetence.

Article tagged as: decommissioning, energy, john sauven, NDA, nuclear power, nuclear subsidies, nuclear waste

Here I go again - nuclear waste costs spiral up, up and away

Posted by ben - 12 October 2007 at 2:08pm - 4 Comments

By Ben, senior nuclear campaigner.

As a closet power ballad fan, when I heard that the taxpayers' bill for cleaning up our existing piles of nuclear waste is skyrocketing (according to the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, or NDA), I couldn't help but think of hard rockin' übergroup Whitesnake's "Here I go again".

Almost every time the nuclear industry gives an estimation of their costs, whether it be for building reactors, pulling them down, storing waste or somehow disposing of it, they have this very predictable habit of spiraling higher and higher, usually in very short order.

Article tagged as: decommissioning, NDA, nuclear power, nuclear waste

New authority contributes to nuclear nightmare

Posted by bex - 3 November 2003 at 8:00am - 0 Comments
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) began operation in 2005. The Authority was originally proposed to oversee the UK's radioactive waste problem - mainly caused by civil nuclear industry activities.


Unfortunately, the role of the Authority has already been radically changed since it was originally proposed. The NDA is now continuing to oversee the operation of nuclear facilities which create nuclear waste - thus adding to a major problem. For example, the NDA runs BNFL's ageing, loss-making Magnox reactors, plus two spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and a MOX plant at Sellafield. This will mean an ever increasing bill for the taxpayer.

Article tagged as: BNFL, decommissioning, energy act, NDA, nuclear power, nuclear waste
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