Old reactors earn their keep

Tuesday, 21 July 2009

Legacy power plants in the UK earned more money for their clean-up last year, meaning a smaller bill for taxpayers.

 

Enjoy the view while it lasts. The NDA plans to eventually dismantle all the UK's national nuclear facilities

The news came in the annual report of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns all the Magnox gas-cooled reactors as well as old research sites and fuel cycle facilities from the UK nuclear program. The Magnox plants generated more power than expected last year, adding £125 million ($205 million) to NDA budgets, while the higher price of power added a further £135 million ($222 million) beyond expectations.

 

Another boost to NDA income was the sale of land to utilities hoping to build new reactors. That netted £387 million ($636 million) for the NDA, while leading to a £507 million ($834 million) asset revaluation ahead of the sale of more land alongside Sellafield.

 

Because the NDA is funded by a combination of income from its commercial operations and a grant-in-aid from the UK government, it was then able to ask for the second-lowest grant in its four-year history: £898 million ($1.47 billion). Last year taxpayers funded the program with some £1.6 billion ($2.6 billion) on top of commercial income. "The more income we can generate, the more we can offset the cost of decommissioning and clean-up to the UK taxpayer," said acting chief executive Richard Waite. His successor, Tony Fountain, will take over in October.

 

It wasn't all good news for the NDA though, performance was below target at the Thorp reprocessing facility as well as Sellafield MOX Plant, both of which have struggled in recent years with technical difficulties. However, a change in the way long-term contracts are administered in that part of the NDA business meant an extraordinary boost in waste and reprocessing income to £1.1 billion ($1.8 billion).

 

The NDA carried out £1.9 billion-worth ($3.1 billion) of decommissioning work last year, while more information about the program ahead saw it increase the total cost of its program by £1.3 billion ($2.1 billion). Another £1 billion ($1.6 billion) increase related to financing saw the amount of work the NDA has ahead of it increase slightly to £44.5 billion ($73.2 billion), with this huge program scheduled for the next several decades.

 

While the cost is high, the goal is worthwhile: the total clean-up of all the old facilities left over from the UK's national push into nuclear power from the 1940s to the 1970s, with all the wastes secured forever in an underground store. Waite said the NDA's job amounted to the largest environmental restoration program in Europe.