British Nuclear Cleanup: Costs and Problems Rising, Planet Ark, January 30, 2008.

LONDON - The costs of cleaning up waste from Britain's first civil nuclear power programme are still rising and uncertainties abound, the National Audit Office, the country's public spending watchdog, said on Wednesday.

Its report comes three weeks after the British government finally gave the green light to a new fleet of nuclear power stations to replace the retiring plants and help the country meet its carbon emission commitments.

But the current 73 billion pound cost of decommissioning the 19 existing nuclear sites over the next century is 18 percent above initial estimates, and the costs of even near-term actions are still rising when they should have stabilised.

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[Of particular interest is this statement by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority:]

"We remain confident that through innovation and world-class performance by our contractors we will first stabilise and then ultimately reduce the UK's nuclear liability."Recommend this Post

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