nuclear-news

Alistair Osborne: Nuclear is waste of time and money

The National Audit Office has found that the Sellafield nuclear waste dump is still a mess,
with costs spiralling and projects delayed. As rebranding jobs go, it’s
hard to beat. Somehow, the nuclear lobby has managed to convince
politicians that the industry is not only green, but “clean”.

Just about all of them have fallen for it, not least our energy supremo Ed
Miliband. Here he is last month: “Homegrown clean energy from renewables
and nuclear offers us a security that fossil fuels simply cannot
provide”. On the energy security point, fair enough. But isn’t he
forgetting something about nukes that you don’t get with windmills and
sunbeams?

Luckily, the National Audit Office is not so easily taken in, as
it’s just proved with a nice reality check: its latest report on
Sellafield, the radioactive waste dump in Cumbria owned by the state-backed
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). True, there is a glimmer of good
news: the spending watchdog says the “management of major projects has
begun to improve”. But it must have been off a chronically low base,
given the problems the NAO finds.

As it notes, of the NDA’s 17 sites
“Sellafield is the UK’s most complex and challenging”: home to
“seven former nuclear reactors” and Britain’s “entire stockpile of
civilian-owned plutonium”. Indeed, much of the “highly hazardous”
stuff knocking around has been deemed by the government to “pose an
intolerable risk”. Cleaning it up is a thankless task, too. On NDA
estimates, it “will take until 2125”.

 Times 23rd Oct 2024, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/nuclear-is-waste-of-time-and-money-ljmxhqklh

October 25, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, UK