Delays and overspend hit Sellafield
11 Feb 2014
Clean-up and decommissioning projects at the Sellafield nuclear plant are subject to considerable delays and going over budget, according to a new Parliamentary report.
The report, published by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), claims that several of the decommissioning projects being undertaken at Sellafield have been significantly delayed and incurred considerable additional costs.
Over the past 18 months, timescales for projects have slipped and reprocessing targets of nuclear waste have been missed, according to PAC chairman Margaret Hodge.
A pile fuel cladding silo project, comprising the decommissioning of a 21m high silo containing over 3,200 cubic metres of intermediate level nuclear waste, has been put back by six years from August 2017 to January 2023 while the estimated cost has risen from £341 million in March 2012 to £750 million in September 2013.
The cost of a MOX plant would be more than the value of the fuel produced. It just doesn’t make sense
PAC chairman Margaret Hodge
Process Engineering reported this time last year that clean-up costs and decommissioning work had already cost an estimated £67.5 billion – with roughly £1.6 billion of public money being spent at the site each year.
”We are seeing costs rising to astonishing levels,” Hodge told committee members earlier this month.
”Cleaning up the nuclear waste on this hazardous site is estimated to cost more than £70 billion in cash terms. What’s worse is that the cost is likely to continue to rise.”
Projects such as the “Magnox swarf storage silos retrievals” almost doubled in cost between March 2012 and September 2013, rising from £387 million to £729 million in 18 months.
The PAC report is heaviliy critical of Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium which consists of URS, Amec and Areva, which is contracted to improve site performance at Sellafield. The report claims that the work by the consortium equated to an average cost of £300,000 per employee in 2012-13.
Meanwhile, large stocks of plutonium stored at Sellafield incur costs of around £40 million per year, with no current method of dealing with it.
“[The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority] wants to build a MOX plant for converting plutonium into fuel for nuclear power stations – but no UK power stations can use this kind of fuel,” said Hodge.
”Even if they could, the cost of building and operating a MOX plant would be more than the value of the fuel produced. It just doesn’t make sense.”
The previous attempt to build a MOX plant at the site encountered “serious problems” and had to be abandoned - incurring £1 billion of costs to date.
