11 July 2008
The cost of decommissioning the UK's first generation of civil nuclear sites could rise significantly beyond the £61bn estimated, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has warned.
In a report on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the PAC said it had been too easy for 'successive governments and the industry' to push decommissioning costs on to future taxpayers. Any new power station operators should make adequate provision for this cost, it said.
Committee chair Edward Leigh said the latest estimate for running the four remaining operational facilities and decommissioning 15 others was £73bn.
'We cannot be confident, however, that even this figure will not be significantly upped when the estimates are next revised,' he said.
'Estimating costs far into the future is of course a precarious business. But elements of cost that might be expected to be more predictable — such as for work expected to be undertaken over the next five years — have risen steeply.'
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