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British decommissioning plans

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

About $17.4 billion is to be spent on dismantling old UK nuclear power and research facilities up to 2011. The bulk of the spending will go to clean-up and decommission the various facilities at Sellafield and Dounreay.

About $17.4 billion is to be spent on dismantling old UK nuclear power and research facilities up to 2011, according to a plan published today.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which was established in 2005 to oversee an ambitious project to manage the safe long-term management of the UK's nuclear legacy, has put the plan out for public consultation until the end of January 2008.

The bulk of the spending will go to clean-up and decommissioning of the various facilities at the Sellafield and Dounreay sites, which are to receive $1.174 billion and $309 million in work per year.

The NDA is also managing the ten pioneering Generation-I Magnox nuclear power plants, spending typically between $62 million and $124 million on each per year.

Two of the plants, Oldbury and Wylfa, are still operating and contribute about $350 million per year in revenue from electricity sales. Similarly, some commercial operations at Sellafield such as reprocessing of used nuclear fuel generate revenues totalling $1.650 billion per year.

In total the NDA expects to spend $2.82 billion on clean-up in 2008/9 - about half its expenditure of $5.690 billion. It should receive $2.542 billion in revenue. Monies earned by NDA go to the government as the ultimate owner of the state-developed facilities, and the government separately allocates the NDA a budget for clean-up.

Estimates of figures for the period 2009/10 and 2010/11 figures are broadly the same overall, with the exception that revenue from electricity generation will finally cease in 2010 as Wylfa retires.

Further information

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

WNA's Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom information paper