Renew On Line (UK) 29a

Extracts from the Jan-Feb 2001 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

12. Nuclear Exit Costs grow

All of the UK nuclear plants, apart from Sizewell, should have been closed down by 2025, with the MAGNOX reactors dropping off well before then.

But as each closes they will then have to start a lengthy decomissioning process - with the outer buildings and non radioactive equipment first being removed and then the core being dismantled. It’s an expensive process. BNFL has calculated that dealing with its old MAGNOX plants could cost £6.2 bn and that leaves out the cost of storing the wastes that are produced.

However, the cost of complete decommissioning of the UK’s nuclear plants could be even larger if the industry cannot leave completion of this complex process for 135 yrs as the current plan. The case for deferral of the final core dismantling process is that then the levels of radiation are lower, so that it’s easier safer and cheaper to complete. However the Nuclear Installation Inspectorate have suggested that the safety case only implies a deferral for around40- 50 years.

That was the sort of timescale most other countries were considering. According to the OECD, depending on the initial closure dates, most countries are expected to complete decommissioning by 2060, but with four planning for a more leisurely 2080 - still more than fifty years ahead on the UK!

It seems that the longer term period favoured by the UK industry is more to do with deferring the cost. It certainly looks attractive economically - just a small regular investment put aside for 135 years can then easily pay for the cost of final decomissioning.

Or to put it the other way around, running the discounted cost back to present values, completion within 40 years would add £1.5bn to the total cost of decomissioning BNFL’s MAGNOX reactors, a sevenfold increase, bringing the total decomissioning cost for all it sites to £11.5bn - according to a study by Gordon MacKerron from SPRU, the Science Policy Research Unit, at Sussex University.

Nuclear gets lions share

A new study by the US Renewable Energy Policy Project (REPP-CREST) has found that nuclear power harvests the lion's share of government investment in nuclear, solar and wind. According to "Federal Energy Subsidies: Not All Technologies Are Created Equal" the U.S. government has spent approximately $150 billion on energy subsidies for wind, solar and nuclear power - 96.3% of which has gone to nuclear power.

"What's really surprising is the relative start up costs for these technologies," said Robby Roberts, REPP's executive director. "Nukes received much higher levels of government support per kilowatt-hour when they first started than either wind or solar power." Roberts continued, "and subsidies heaped on nuclear power have not been cheap. Since 1947, cumulative subsidies to nuclear power had an equivalent cost of $1,411 [1998 dollars] per US household, compared to $11 for wind, for example."

Marshall Goldberg of MRG & ASSOCIATES, an environmental and economic consulting firm, wrote "Federal Energy Subsidies." The report provide a qualitative analysis of hydropower development and offers charts and graphs to illustrate over 50 years of government spending. Findings also indicate that subsidies themselves are often an essential component in technology development.

"It requires a great deal of money to establish an energy technology," said Dr. Adam Serchuk, research director for REPP-CREST, "and very few have reached maturity without public investment. Of course, it takes more than subsidies to develop a technology. In the case of common consumer products, such as the fax machine, recycled paper or the cell phone, more subtle public policy measures such as setting standards or government purchasing have often made a big difference."

REPP-CREST explores the emerging relationships among markets, policy and public demand for renewable energy. Visit < http://www.repp.org > for copies of: "Federal Energy Subsidies: Not All Technologies Are Created Equal" by Marshall Goldberg. REPP, Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology, 1612 K St, NW #202, Washington, DC 20006 Tel: 202.293.2898; Fax: 202.293.5857

Just when you though it was safely buried…

In 1998 the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee recommended that: ‘A formal presumption be made now, for purposes of long-term planning, that new nuclear plant may be required in the course of the next two decades.’

This recommendation has been supported by a joint working group of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which, in 1999, urged that:

‘The timetable for such consideration should allow a decision to be taken early enough to enable nuclear to play a full, long-term role in national energy policy. This is likely to mean early in the next administration, if a damaging decline in the role of nuclear is to be avoided’.

See our Groups Section ( Renew 129) for more details of this ongoing Royal Society/Royal Academy study.

But worse still, rumour has it that, faced with ever growing stockpiles of plutonium from their spent fuel reprocessing activities and few takers for their MOX fuel, BNFL would like to build two new plutonium burning reactors - possibly one at Sellafield and one at Chapelcross. They could use Inert Matrix Fuel - where the uranium is replaced with Yttrium, so no new plutonium is generated. BNFL now has a stake in three reactor types which would be suitable - the Westinghouse AP600; the ABB Series 80 and the South African PMBR. This new approach could lead to a reactor system they could export around the world - with CDM support?