£600m more and counting: taxpayers' bill for clean-up at Dounreay

Published on Wednesday 21 November 2007 01:00

THE cost to taxpayers of cleaning up the Dounreay nuclear plant has soared by more than £600 million and could become even more expensive, it has been revealed.

The decommissioning of the Caithness complex and creating a near-greenfield site was due to be completed by 2032 at a cost of 2.9 billion.

However, the figure for the latest long-range proposal for the site, known as the Lifetime Plan, has jumped to almost 3.6 billion.

The new costs were revealed by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which now owns the Dounreay site, in its three-year programme which has gone out for consultation.

The NDA said the main reasons for the increase were improved estimating of costs in later years and the identification of gaps in previous plans.

In the past, it was assumed plutonium and uranium from Dounreay would be transferred during the 2020s to a proposed national fuel store at Sellafield which has never been built.

As there has been no formal agreement to hand over this material, Dounreay has to account for the cost of a new store on site, at about 400-500 million.

Also, the timetable for disposing of intermediate-level waste (ILW) has been rescheduled, requiring it to be stored at Dounreay until 2075 - ten years longer than previously planned.

Since this move was decided, the Scottish Government has announced that ILW in Scotland will be stored instead of being sent to a proposed repository, which has also not been built, meaning the material could remain at Dounreay indefinitely.

If this is the case, it would mean an additional cost which has yet to be included in the long-term plan.

A spokesman for Dounreay said: "We are dealing with things like planning for a fuel store that wasn't in a previous plan and rescheduling waste movements. A lot of these costs are for things that are planned to occur 30, 40 or 50 years hence. The one thing we can guarantee is these costs will change again."

Dr Ian Roxburgh, chief executive of the NDA said: "The work to increase our understanding of the nature and condition of the nuclear liabilities in our ownership over the last two years has given us a clearer view of what our priorities for decommissioning should be.

"Before the NDA was set up, there was a short-term, fragmented approach to decommissioning. For the first time, we are now able to take a UK-wide, long-term look at what needs to be done, and when.

"Our priority is hazard reduction and we will be focused on the sites that require the most work. This means the majority of funds over the next three years will be focused on Sellafield and Dounreay, whilst safety remains the absolute priority across all our sites."

But Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "This represents a major increase in the final clean-up costs at Dounreay.

"The public should not be that surprised. Groups like Friends of the Earth have repeatedly warned the nuclear industry cannot be trusted, especially when it comes to costs. From reactor construction to final clean-up, the industry has never managed to estimate costs properly."