Greenpeace today accused the government of 'squandering an opportunity' to tackle the UK's radioactive decommissioning and clean up problems.
The new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which comes into being today, will take ownership of many of the UK's major nuclear facilities - including the controversial Sellafield site. But while the NDA was originally flagged in the Legacy White Paper of 2002 as a body that should focus "squarely on [dealing with] the nuclear legacy", it has not been designed to fully deal with the huge problem of radioactive waste. Instead the government has created a body that will:
- operate two large-scale spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at Sellafield, which create massive amounts of nuclear waste;
- run loss making Magnox reactors;
- possibly commission the Sellafield MOX plant, which is meant to produce plutonium-fuel for reactors overseas; and
- relieve British Nuclear Fuels of all of its nuclear waste liabilities - a matter which is currently the subject of an investigation by the European Competition Commission.
The NDA will also be heavily reliant on reprocessing and Magnox reactor operations for a sizeable proportion of its income.
"The government has squandered an ideal opportunity to tackle the urgent need for decommissioning and clean-up at some of the UK's most hazardous nuclear sites," said Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Jean McSorley. "The NDA will be dependent for half of its income on waste-creating activities like spent fuel reprocessing in order to fund its decommissioning and clean-up program. It's like paying dustmen to drop litter. The government has also squandered the public goodwill that greeted the initial announcement to create this Authority."
Greenpeace, which has closely followed the progress of the NDA, has been heavily critical of the fact that the Authority will take over all of British Nuclear Fuels nuclear waste liabilities.
McSorley added: "Although the NDA will take over BNFL's assets, these are overshadowed by the cost of its liabilities. In allowing BNFL to effectively dump these liabilities on the doorstep of the NDA, the government has given a massive state-aid bailout to BNFL. The Commission's investigation of the NDA and state aid issues is of vital concern not only in the context of UK subsidies for the nuclear industry, but for the whole of Europe. If BNFL gets away with ditching its liabilities in this way, other nuclear companies across Europe will try to follow suit. This will have major ramifications for competition in the electricity sector and will particularly hurt the developing renewables industry."
It is expected the Competition Commission's investigation, which began in January, will last until the end of the year.
For further details contact Jean McSorley on 07801 212 959 or the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.
