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Britain’s plans for dismantling its nuclear reactors will place an unacceptable burden on future generations, warns a report commissioned by the government’s radioactive waste advisers. The present strategy for decommissioning commercial reactors is to remove the fuel and most other equipment, but then wait a hundred years before dismantling radioactive components around the core. Analysts at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), attached to the University of Sussex, say the technical and financial provisions put in place for this strategy are wholly inadequate.

Leaving behind a legacy of health and financial risk flies in the face of the government’s claim that its environmental policy is based on the principle of sustainable development. This states that any burden left to future generations must be minimised. The report concludes: ‘Even if future generations will have to do the work and bear the health risks, they should not be left a financial burden as well.’

The SPRU argues that by the time a plant closes, there should be enough money in a fund to decommission the reactor. And, taking a lead from the US, it says that administration of this fund should be transferred from the operators of the reactors, Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear, to independent trustees.

Leaving a reactor for a long time before dismantling it makes good sense – it becomes much less radioactive. But no full-sized reactor anywhere in the world has yet been fully decommissioned, says John Surrey, one of the report’s authors. No one knows the true cost of the process or even whether it is technically possible. For these reasons, the report recommends that one of Britain’s ageing magnox reactors should be completely dismantled.

The report saves special criticism for the financial plans agreed between the government and the operators, which allow the companies to set aside only a small proportion of the money needed to decommission a reactor during its lifetime. This small pot of money is expected to grow by at least 2 per cent a year above inflation, so that when the time comes to dismantle the radioactive core there will be enough in the fund to pay the whole cost. Currently, the operators are allowed to reinvest the money in their own business, as both companies have done.

But the SPRU argues that such a long-term financing scheme is fraught with uncertainties. If the fund does not earn interest at the required rate, future generations would be left to make up the shortfall. ‘Funds in the US have actually found it quite difficult to keep up with inflation,’ says Steve Thomas, another of the report’s authors.

Other problems could shorten the plant’s life, reducing the investment built up over its years of operation. And an accident could increase decommissioning costs dramatically. The accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 increased the estimated cost of decommissioning from $200 million to $4.8 billion.

The present plans also restrict the options open to future generations, says Surrey. If they decide to decommission a reactor before there is enough money in the pot, they will have to pay the difference. ‘We’re saying ‘we know best’,’ says Surrey. ‘You’re silly if you touch it before 100 or 135 years. And we’re going to make sure you don’t, by making sure you don’t have the money before that time.’

The authors also point out that the money now available for decommissioning magnox and advanced gas-cooled reactors is merely a figure on a balance sheet, and not real money. In the 1980s, the old Central Electricity Generating Board had allocated £726 million for decommissioning, but this was ‘lost’ during privatisation in 1990. The estimated cost of decommissioning Nuclear Electric’s 13 reactors is £7.8 billion. It includes £1.6 billion in its balance sheet for decommissioning, but much of this has been spent in building Sizewell B, the country’s first pressurised water reactor. Sizewell B’s performance will dictate in large measure how the fund grows.

The Treasury should hand over this money now to an independent fund, says Thomas. With the government’s spending running £50 billion ahead of its income, it is unlikely to agree to this proposal. ‘But that’s the logic,’ says Thomas. ‘If they don’t, it’s going to be future taxpayers or electricity consumers that pay.’

The government’s Radioactive Waste Management Committee, which commissioned the report, says ‘public confidence might be enhanced’ by setting up independent funds. It also says the idea of having all the money for decommissioning by the end of the plant’s life ‘would remove the problem of long-term interest rate prediction’. But it says that it would be impossible to provide financial cover for the worst of all conceivable outcomes. The committee’s chairman, John Knill, says that to be fair to nuclear power, the principle of sustainable development should now be applied to fossil fuel plants.

Nuclear Electric disagrees with the SPRU’s conclusions. Decommissioning, which mainly involves cutting steel and concrete, has been tested successfully on research reactors, it says. Nor is Britain unusual in the way it handles decommissioning funds, says Stephen Ogle, the company’s financial control director. France, Japan and Belgium have similar arrangements. Creating an independent fund would make no sense while Nuclear Electric is owned by the government, he says. But as a privatised company, it would have to consider the option. Nuclear Electric’s approach to decommissioning ‘is cautious’, he says, ‘and gets the balance right between this generation and the next’