I am sorry. I cannot give way because I am allowed only two lots of injury time.
Other factors can cause decommissioning costs to jump. Current laws can be amended. The 2002 White Paper “Managing a Nuclear Legacy” identified exactly this point as being a factor in the Sellafield costs. Secondly, fuel and waste management represent additional unknown financial burdens. Fuel management is particularly problematic. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority notes, for example, that oxide fuel must be stored for decades before it is possible to place the fuel in a geological disposal facility. That brings me on to a crisis point: no GDF exists in any country. The UK Government have yet to locate an appropriate site for one on UK land. The full cost of constructing and operating such a facility is therefore unknown. Some £400 million of Government funding was spent examining a potential site for a GDF in Cumbria, only for Cumbria county council to vote against the plans last month over safety concerns.
Thirdly, the need for public funding is unlikely to abate over time. As the BBC journalist Richard Black points out, with the full life-cycle of nuclear power stations stretching over such long time frames, it is impossible to guarantee that companies originally involved in the running of the power plants will still be in existence or financially capable of meeting some of the costs of the decommissioning processes. Fourthly, aside from the decommissioning and other costs mentioned previously, the financial burden that a nuclear accident would place on UK taxpayers would be enormous, and this potential liability needs to be built into any pricing structure. Operators have some obligation to limited liability to cover accident costs, but these are capped, with Government underwriting the costs above the cap.
In March 2012 the Government response to the consultation held on increasing nuclear third party liability admitted:
“An incident of the scale of Fukushima would lead to costs that far exceed an operator liability limit.”
The response confirmed that Government intervention would very likely be needed. Proponents of nuclear will say that the likelihood of accidents is low, but the Government’s own advisers have confirmed that it is “not zero”. As recent history has shown, severe accidents do occur—five major incidents worldwide so far.