Decommissioning : how much does it cost?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmtrdind/1028/1028.pdf
“We are disappointed, but not surprised, that considerable uncertainty still remains
in relation to the cost of decommissioning and clean up. The legacy of civil nuclear
liabilities has been accumulating for sixty years; some of it was created at a time of great
military urgency and when the science was less understood; and it is no fault of the
NDA that, in its short life, it has been unable to discover the exact nature and quantity
of the nuclear material on its sites. The public civil nuclear liability for waste has risen
from £48 billion in 2002, to £56 billion in 2004, to £70.2 billion in 2006. Thus the
overall quantified costs of £70.2 billion seem to us likely to rise significantly, both as
further investigative work is done at the most difficult sites within Sellafield and
Dounreay, and because the nuclear industry appears to be reluctant to continue with
reprocessing of spent fuel while this remains more expensive than buying new stocks of
uranium—with the result that much of the plutonium and uranic material mentioned
by the NDA would probably be reclassified as waste and the NDA would have to deal
with it accordingly”
