The escalating costs of decommissioning UK’s nuclear reactors pose a warning about new nuclear reactors.
The history of the AGR fleet provides lessons for other long-term programmes carrying significant end‑of‑life liabilities, including new nuclear energy programmes.
| The government has entered into new arrangements to decommission seven AGR nuclear power stations. While the arrangements could deliver savings, their success will ultimately depend on the relevant parties working collaboratively to overcome risks, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). The Nuclear Liabilities Fund (the Fund) was established to meet the costs of decommissioning these eight stations, but significant additional taxpayer support has been required with more likely to be necessary. The UK government has provided a guarantee to underwrite the Fund in the event that its assets are insufficient to meet the total costs of decommissioning. In 2020, government contributed £5.1 billion to strengthen the Fund’s position and the Fund has recently requested a further £5.6 billion. The Fund’s assets were valued at £14.8 billion at the end of March 2021. The aim is that growth in the Fund’s investments will be sufficient to meet the long-term costs of decommissioning (£23.5 billion). However, cost estimates have doubled in real terms since 2004-05. If this upward trend is maintained and investment growth is not sufficient, there is a risk that the taxpayer will have to make further contributions. In June 2021, the AGR stations’ owner EDF Energy (EDFE) agreed to defuel each of the stations in an arrangement that the Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (the Department) estimates could save the taxpayer around £1 billion. Once defueling is completed, ownership of the stations will transfer to the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for its subsidiary Magnox Ltd to complete the rest of the decommissioning process, which is likely to take several decades. Initial ambitions that the existence of the Nuclear Liabilities Fund would help eliminate taxpayers’ exposure are being tested, with rapid increases in the estimates of decommissioning costs outstripping investment returns. The history of the AGR fleet provides lessons for other long-term programmes carrying significant end‑of‑life liabilities, including new nuclear energy programmes. National Audit Office 28th Jan 2022 https://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-decommissioning-of-the-agr-nuclear-power-stations/ |
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1.This Month
above – Nagasaki child victim
Harry Truman and the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Frank Jackson, 9 Aug 20 Whether the bombing of Hiroshima or the entry of the Soviet Union into the war was the crucial event in causing the Japanese surrender can never be conclusively settled (Hiroshima at 75: bitter row persists over US decision to drop the bomb, 5 August). However, very little is said about the motives for the second bomb, on Nagasaki three days later. Few argued that it was necessary to reinforce the message of Hiroshima. Rather, the military and scientific imperative was to test a different bomb design – “Fat Man”, an implosion type using plutonium, as opposed to the uranium of Hiroshima’s “Little Boy”. To my mind that, destroying a mainly civilian city for such reasons, makes it even more of a war crime, if that is possible, than the bombing of Hiroshim.a
Frank Jackson
Former co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/harry-truman-and-the-nuclear-bombs-dropped-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
“Shinda Onnanoko” (“Dead Girl”), by Nâzim Hikmet, translated into Japanese by Nobuyuki Nakamoto
I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread.
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.
I’m only seven, although I died
In Hiroshima long ago.
I’m seven now as I was then.
When children die, they do not grow.
My hair was scorched by swirling flame.
My eyes grew dim; my eyes grew blind.
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.
I need no fruit, I need no rice.
I need no sweets, nor even bread.
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.
All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of the world
May live and grow and laugh and play.
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