The cost of decommissioning Dounreay is set to rise by more than £500m and there could be further increases on the way, it was revealed yesterday.
Much of the increase is due to uncertainty over the fate of radioactive fuel and nuclear waste on the Caithness site The increase came to light as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) approved the latest long-range plan for the site's closure.
But it also emerged that the government had advised the NDA to use discounted figures for estimating the cost of decommissioning Dounreay.
For a number of years the official estimate was £2.9bn. That had been scaled back to £2.1bn but has now been increased again to £2.7bn. Using real-term estimates, the cost will effectively rise to more than £3.6bn.
Environmentalists said it did not matter which set of figures was used, they proved the public could not believe a word the nuclear industry said about costs.
A spokesman for the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Dounreay said: "Much of the increase is due to gaps identified in our previous decommissioning plans by the NDA. The most significant of these is the addition of a store for nuclear fuel at Dounreay.
"Previously it had been assumed that plutonium and uranium stocks would transfer from Dounreay to a national store, probably at Sellafield, sometime in the 2020s. There have been years of discussion but there was no formal agreement in place. We needed to remove that risk from the plan, so provision has now been included for a fuel store to be built at Dounreay."
In addition, there had been a 10-year delay in the proposed removal of the most hazardous wastes from the site to national disposal facilities, adding a decade of storage costs at Dounreay to the bill.
It is also understood that Dounreay officials have been considering the costs of building a spur railway line to the station from the Thurso to Inverness line in case the fuel and waste eventually have to be moved south.
The financial position could be even more complicated with Scottish ministers arguing that Scottish waste should stay in Scotland. Nobody has costed such a policy.
A spokesperson said the Scottish Government was in discussion with the NDA and others to consider the implications of its statement in June that ministers support "near surface, near site storage facilities for higher activity radioactive wastes. This work is ongoing and we are not yet in a position to advise on the implications for Scottish sites."
Ian Roxburgh, NDA chief executive, said: "For the first time we are now able to take a UK-wide, long term look at what needs to be done, and when. This means that the majority of funds over the next three years will be focused on Sellafield and Dounreay."
The NDA said that the government told it to use Treasury discounted rates of 2.2% per year when estimating future costs of decommissioning the 20 civil nuclear sites under its control.
Industry sources said this means that the total estimated decommissioning bill is calculated as though a cheque was being signed today, rather than costs being met over the next 25 years.
Duncan McLaren, Friends of the Earth Scotland's chief executive, said: "What is clear is that this represents a major increase in the final clean-up costs at Dounreay."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article