nuclear-news

Geological disposal facility for nuclear waste could cost £54bn and ‘appears unachievable’.

15 Aug, 2025 By Tom Pashby

The UK government’s proposed solution for long-term storage of high-level waste from the nuclear sector, a geological disposal facility (GDF), has been described as “unachievable” in a Treasury assessment of the project.

 The National Infrastructure and Service
Transformation Authority (Nista), a Treasury unit, made the assessment in
its Nista Annual Report 2024-2025, published on 11 August, where it rated
213 other major infrastructure projects.

A GDF represents a monumental
undertaking, consisting of an engineered vault placed between 200m and 1km
underground, covering an area of approximately 1km2 on the surface. This
facility is designed to safely contain nuclear waste while allowing it to
decay over thousands of years, thereby reducing its radioactivity and
associated hazards. NWS declares that this method offers the most secure
solution for managing the UK’s nuclear waste, aimed at relieving future
generations of the burden of storage.

The project would be so vast that it
would require two separate development consent order (DCO) applications to
be approved – one for exploratory works and another for the project
itself. Nuclear Free Local Authorities secretary Richard Outram said:
“The Nista Red rating is hardly surprising. The GDF process is fraught
with uncertainties and the GDF ‘solution’ remains unproven and costly.
“A single facility as estimated by government sources could cost the
taxpayer between £20bn and £54bn, this being a nuclear project it is much
more likely to be the latter and beyond.”

 New Civil Engineer 15th Aug 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/geological-disposal-facility-for-nuclear-waste-could-cost-54bn-and-appears-unachievable-15-08-2025/

August 16, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, wastes