Information Bulletin
Government Plan for Nuclear Waste Pricing could leave Taxpayers footing the Bill
Shetland Islands Council has expressed serious concerns that the taxpayer might end up with a huge bill to pay for cleaning up radioactive waste from any new nuclear reactors built in the UK.
In response to a Government consultation on decommissioning new reactors and managing their wastes the Council argues that any risks over funding should be borne by the operator, not the public. But instead the Government is proposing to give reactor developers a 'fixed unit price' for storing their wastes to help them predict future costs and raise the billions of pounds needed to finance the development.
Council environment spokesperson Councillor Jim Henry said "The whole proposal is crazy, short-sighted and potentially very expensive for taxpayers." The Government is proposing to fix a cost for looking after the waste by the end of next year - and set limits on the cost of decommissioning a reactor.
"None of the possible reactors the Government is considering has even been built yet - let alone been decommissioned - and the first new reactor in Finland is already 50 per cent over budget. On top of that we don't yet have a site or detailed plans for a waste repository. So how can we possibly give a realistic fixed price for work that will not be carried out for perhaps 40 or 50 years", Mr Henry said.
Mr Henry said it was important the Council highlighted the dangers of the Government's proposals because they had implications for Shetland in the future. "Not only might the taxpayer have to pay billions of pounds that would otherwise be available for public services, but the wastes from new reactors will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. The Council also has concerns over the way the Government is ignoring its own independent advisers to press forward with a deep underground waste repository. Building new nuclear reactors is not the answer to our long-term energy problems - they only bring new problems. A mixed energy supply based on renewables is the way forward."
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