VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE: Paul Brown
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VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE: Paul Brown
Paul Brown, former environment
correspondent of The Guardian
researched and wrote this paper
when a Press Fellow at Wolfson
College, Cambridge during 2007/08.
The Fellowship was sponsored
by British Petroleum. The views
expressed in this paper are those of
the author.
Making life better for people by inspiring solutions to environmental problems
Friends of the Earth is:
L the UK’s most influential environmental campaigning organisation
L the most extensive environmental network in the world with more than 1 million supporters
across five continents and more than 70 national organisations worldwide.
2 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The economics of new nuclear already £100 each for every
power stations for the UK do not taxpayer in the country – and this * Voo·doo eco·nom·ics,
add up. It is not possible to achieve is rising. [ \ vü-(_)dü\ \_e-k_-
∂ nä-
what the Government says it will do L Three of the four new reactor ∂
miks, e-k_-\ ], noun
– build a new generation of nuclear designs being put forward for UK 1. Term coined by George
stations in England without public construction have never been built. Bush Snr to describe Ronald
subsidy. The only “third generation” nuclear Reagan’s economic policy
station that is under construction, because it promised to lower
New build will not be possible and the favourite to be built in taxes and increase revenues
without large sums of taxpayers’ Britain, is half-built in Finland. It is at the same time. 2. Any
money being pledged, and two years behind schedule and use of economics based
extending the unlimited guarantees million of pounds over budget. on contradictory ideas and
to underwrite all the debts of the L The nuclear industry claims gobbledegook.
existing and future nuclear industry. that if planning is streamlined,
nuclear licensing speeded up, and
This paper exposes how badly the construction is on schedule, a new dealing with used nuclear fuel from
nuclear industry has performed nuclear station could be up and power stations is seizing up.
over its entire 50 years of unfulfilled running in 10 years. Civil servants L The MOX plant that is supposed to
promises, and the already escalating estimate 2021, but previous British make money by turning plutonium
bill to the taxpayer. experience with untried nuclear and uranium into new fuel has
designs suggests it could be up to been a technical and financial
The key points are: a decade longer. disaster. The fuel was supposed
L The taxpayer has already to be the safe way of returning
underwritten all the debts and The main problems at Sellafield are: tonnes of plutonium recovered
liabilities of British Energy so the L The flagship Thorp reprocessing during reprocessing in the Thorp
company can never go bankrupt. plant, built to extract plutonium plant to its country of origin. This
This commitment dwarfs the risk to and unused uranium from used plan has failed yet the Government
the taxpayer of the Northern Rock nuclear fuel, was closed for three has no policy for dealing with the
nationalisation. years from 2005. It remains under ensuing economic and political
L It will take 10 to 20 years before severe operating restrictions and crisis.
the first new nuclear stations cannot complete its long-overdue L As a result, the promises of
can be built and are producing contracts to deal with spent foreign successive governments that
power in Britain. By that time the fuel. Sellafield would not become the
liabilities of the existing privatised L The closure of the elderly world’s nuclear dustbin and all
industry will be so great that the Magnox reprocessing plant has foreign nuclear waste would be
Government will have had to been postponed, leaving the UK repatriated cannot be fulfilled.
renationalise it. unable to meet its international L While Britain piles up its own and
L The crisis may come much commitments to cut radioactive foreign nuclear waste there are
sooner. British Energy may have discharges into the Irish Sea. currently no plans or sites for a
to start closing some of its 11 L The plants for dealing with the repository to store or dispose of
nuclear stations because the only residue of reprocessing, the it. The earliest dates for a deep
remaining storage space for spent volatile and dangerous heat- underground intermediate waste
fuel at Sellafield, in Cumbria, is producing high-level liquid waste, repository are notionally 2045 and
running out. do not work as designed. The high level waste 2075. In reality
L Employing more than 10,000 evaporators for reducing the there are no plans for either.
people, the massive nuclear volume and the system for turning
complex at Sellafield is in crisis. the liquid into glass blocks have
Its reprocessing works and a constantly broken down and
plutonium fuel plant are all failing underperformed. As a result the
at a massive cost – annually whole Sellafield production line for
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 3
INTRODUCTION
Credit: Don McPhee/Guardian Newspapers.
Successive British governments unfolding crisis in the existing British
have announced ambitious plans for nuclear industry.
a new nuclear age. Over 50 years
they have promised to build families SELLAFIELD IS FAILING
of identical reactors producing cheap The Sellafield nuclear site in
power. Each plan has faltered. Cumbria, which houses two publicly-
Delays, U-turns and cost overruns owned reprocessing works and a
have turned each into a financial plant for making mixed uranium and
headache for the taxpayer – while plutonium fuel called MOX, is failing.
electricity consumers’ bills have been Not one of its facilities is working as
pushed up to pay the extra costs. it was designed to do. Breakdowns
are costing taxpayers millions of
It is about to happen again. pounds a week. The bill for keeping
this site running at a continuous loss
The announcement in January 2008 is about £100 a year, or £2 a week,
of another new family of reactors for every taxpayer in the country,
is repeating the same mistakes. amounting to £3 billion annually.
Against the evidence of history and
the current knowledge of the nuclear Sellafield’s intractable problems are
industry the Government is displaying likely to rebound on the privatised
breathtaking optimism about the part of the nuclear industry. British The 400 foot chimney of Windscale’s
potential for the technology. Energy is wholly reliant on Sellafield Pile One, damaged by a fire in 1957
to reprocess and store spent fuel predicted to have caused up to 50
The economics of building new from the 14 advanced gas-cooled deaths. The picture is taken from
nuclear power plants, endorsed by reactors (AGRs) that it operates. the village graveyard at nearby
the Government, are based on the Sellafield Limited, which runs the Seascale.
figures provided by the industry site, denies space is running out
– which of course has a vested and British Energy says it does
interest in making them appear not believe there is any “short term the risks and costs onto the taxpayer
competitive. Yet the nuclear industry threat to its operations”; but spent while private investors pocket the
has never completed any project in fuel assemblies are being stacked profit. Yet that is, up to now, how
Britain on time or on budget. The three deep in the reception ponds the industry has been run. In fact
Government’s own figures say a because of a shortage of storage there has been no reason, if nuclear
new nuclear power programme will space. If Sellafield can take no more stations were economic, why they
cut gas imports by only 7 per cent spent fuel, then British Energy’s AGR should not have been built already.
and carbon dioxide emissions by 4 stations will gradually have to close. The conclusion is that the industry
per cent. Yet the programme for four always needs the Government to
gigantic new stations will get political The Government last bailed out underwrite it.
encouragement and public subsidy the privatised nuclear industry in
on the false claim that Britain needs 2001 to prevent it going bankrupt. The impact of years of unfounded
them for security of energy supply This resulted in an open-ended optimism and blind acceptance of
and to reduce carbon emissions. commitment to meet all British the industry’s unproven forecasts
Without government help these Energy’s liabilities should it become is already apparent. The Nuclear
stations could not be built. insolvent a second time. The Decommissioning Authority (NDA)
Government’s commitment to was founded on the notion that it
Ministers seem unaware that at the Northern Rock Bank savers is small would be able to fund part of the
same time as endorsing a by comparison. cleaning up of all the radioactivity
new family of reactors, to be once plant is shut down at Sellafield
designed and to be delivered For the new nuclear renaissance the by income from reprocessing spent
by foreign suppliers, there is an Government says it will not load all fuel, thereby creating even more
4 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
waste to deal with in the future.
This strategy is failing because the ABOUT THIS REPORT The Chronology is a history
plant does not work as planned. This paper written by Paul of unfilled dreams and broken
Technical flaws, some of which Brown, while British Petroleum promises. It is a timeline of
cannot be fixed because they are sponsored Press Fellow at false optimism, grandiose and
inside highly radioactive areas, have Wolfson College, Cambridge in unrealistic plans, cost overruns
made nonsense of estimates of 2007/08, draws on 20 years of and false assurances. It puts
potential income from plants. This is reporting the nuclear industry for in context the naivety of the
causing a funding crisis at the NDA The Guardian, numerous papers current Cabinet. The history
and a scaling-back of its clean-up and documents collected over of the nuclear industry makes
operations. the period, and a large number one wonder how Gordon Brown
of recent reports. The industry, could believe for a moment
Ministers will find themselves Government and regulators have that his Government’s decision
trying to deal with these escalating answered detailed questions. to give the green light to more
problems at the same time as stations would usher in a new
asking MPs to rubber-stamp a The paper is divided into three atomic age for Britain.
revival of nuclear power. MPs parts.
might want to consider that all the Part 2 examines the pitfalls
available evidence suggests the Part 1 describes the crisis facing ahead for existing and new
Government’s plans will mean higher operations at Sellafield – the nuclear power stations. The
electricity bills for their constituents. industry’s flagship for 50 years. Government has been ignoring
Technical failures across all its inconvenient information and
It is already known that the taxpayer operations are driving costs up well-researched advice. A
faces a £72 billion bill to clean up rapidly. Targets for reprocessing complication is its open-ended
the nuclear industry; yet this figure is spent fuel, producing new commitment to underwrite
sold as a problem of “legacy” wastes fuel, and dealing with wastes British Energy’s debts. This is
– as if the current Government has are being missed. Despite the same company that owns
no responsibility for it. Although Government assurances most of the sites on which
some of these costs are historic otherwise, the site has become nuclear new build is expected
liabilities from Britain’s 60-year the world’s nuclear dustbin as to take place. Yet it seems
nuclear programme, they are increasing quantities of foreign inevitable that if a new building
escalating precisely because current and British nuclear detritus pile programme goes ahead British
Government policy is to persist with up. There is no disposal route Energy will find itself with
reprocessing – even though it is for the British waste extracted at liabilities exceeding its assets
demonstrably unnecessary, given Sellafield, and as yet, no plans a second time. Any shortfall
that all spent fuel from the newer to return to the country of origin and the costs end up with the
nuclear stations could be stored and thousands of tonnes of foreign taxpayer. The Government will
disposed of at far less cost. waste. This is from nations have to take on ownership of
that have sent their spent fuel any bankrupt nuclear stations;
to the UK to be reprocessed. it can then choose to run them
Repeated Government pledges as a nationalised industry.
that the plutonium, uranium and Alternatively it could take on all
waste from reprocessing this the new liabilities and give back
spent fuel would be repatriated the stations to private ownership
have still to be honoured. as it did only three years ago.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 5
PART 1:
Sellafield is the most closely the nuclear production line running; liquid radioactive waste. This waste
guarded industrial complex in the over optimistic predictions made is very volatile and difficult to deal
Europe. For more than 50 years to justify investment in them; and with. The recycled plutonium and
this remote site in Cumbria, where a comparison with their current uranium can be turned into new
10,000 people are employed, has financial problems. fuel (called mixed oxide, or MOX).
been at the frontier of nuclear In practice only a tiny quantity has
technology; it is also a lynchpin of No electricity is now produced been used in this way because it is
the industry in the UK. If it is not at Sellafield using nuclear power far more expensive to produce than
working properly the whole industry – all the reactors are being normal uranium fuel. Many reactors
feels the effects. decommissioned. Instead the site’s are not designed to use MOX and it
business is to receive spent fuel is potentially more hazardous.
Here the nuclear dream has turned from British and foreign reactors.
into an economic and security Some is kept in storage ponds. The Sellafield nuclear recycling centre
nightmare for the British taxpayer. The These are swimming pool-sized has suffered many near disastrous
extent of the problems at Sellafield tanks into which spent fuel is episodes in its history; but accidents
has not been fully explained to the lowered as it is delivered from power and technical and management
public; nor have the potential knock- stations. To be safe, and avoid failures in the past 10 years have
on effects for the whole nuclear overheating, the fuel needs to be brought this production line of linked
industry. But research shows the constantly monitored and kept cool. nuclear factories to a crisis.
situation is rapidly getting worse. Some is held there indefinitely but
most is destined to be reprocessed. The Government’s safety
HOW SELLAFIELD WORKS watchdog, the Nuclear Installations
(OR DOESN’T) Reprocessing involves feeding Inspectorate (NII), placed a legal
Sellafield houses several different thousands of tonnes of spent fuel requirement on the operators British
plants. Because they are all linked, into two giant works that chop up Nuclear Fuels to reduce the volume
leaks, malfunctions and failure to this highly radioactive material, of highly active liquors from 1,575
reach targets at one plant affect dissolve it in nitric acid, and then cubic metres in 2001 to a buffer
the rest. Below is a summary of the separate and recover the plutonium stock of 200 cubic metres by 2015.
main operations required to keep and uranium, leaving a residue of (Buffer levels are the amounts of
Chronology
1954:
Lewis Strauss, chairman
of the US Atomic Energy
Commission, said atomic
power would provide electricity
“too cheap to meter”. The UK
tried to make this promise
come true by combining
plutonium and electricity
production in one power station
design. Plutonium was given
much greater value than gold
and so the “plutonium credit”
for power stations meant
that on paper the electricity
produced was virtually free.
6 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
Credit: Guardian Newspapers liquid waste in the system which would allow safe, efficient operation of the plant.) Technical failures in the evaporators required to do this have led to frequent and costly shutdowns – all funded by the taxpayer. The major clean-up priority at Sellafield is turning highly dangerous liquid radioactive wastes into safer glass blocks – so called vitrification. These five important operations at Sellafield – the two reprocessing plants, the MOX plant, the evaporators and the vitrification plant – are all in trouble. They are part of the same nuclear production line to which spent nuclear fuel from the UK and countries across the world is delivered. At the other end of this reprocessing conveyor belt neatly packaged new fuel and waste are supposed to be delivered back to customers. It has never worked liked that. Instead the production line has repeatedly broken down, and there are too few customers for the MOX fuel. As a result Sellafield is the 1962, Cumbria, England – Calder Hall, Britain’s first nuclear power station, home of the world’s biggest stockpile which opened in 1956. 1956: 1957: 1957: The Queen opened the first Government promises a nuclear After a disastrous fire at Windscale, two 65 megawatt dual purpose building programme to achieve the world’s worst nuclear accident reactors at Calder Hall at 5,000 to 6,000 megawatts until Chernobyl in 1986, Prime Windscale (later Sellafield). “The capacity by 1965. That would Minister Harold Macmillan told first station anywhere in the world mean 20 nuclear stations with the Cabinet he was suppressing to produce electricity from atomic four reactors each the size of the report that detailed the full energy on a full industrial scale,” ones at Calder Hall. extent of the disaster, defects according to Rab Butler, for the in organisation and technical Government at the time. The shortcomings. The facts were not public was not told the reason made public for 30 years. for the station being built was to produce plutonium for the UK’s nuclear weapons. Because of the plutonium credit the electricity was regarded as a cheap by- product. VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 7
Credit: Christopher Thomond/Guardian Newspapers
of plutonium and uranium for which
there is currently no use. In addition
there is an ever increasing quantity of
nuclear waste, which, despite billions
of pounds of investment in hardware,
the industry is struggling to deal with.
TWO KEY PROCESSES FAILING
There are two ends of the line for
Sellafield production. Neither is
working properly.
The first is the high-level nuclear
waste stream, intended to produce
packaged waste for deep geological
storage and eventually disposal. This
begins with evaporating the highly
dangerous liquid nuclear waste to
reduce its volume and eventually Flasks in the Vitrified Product Store at Sellafield. Light circles denote full
turning it into glass blocks. flasks, dark are empty.
The second is the end-product for
recovered plutonium and uranium is virtually brand new but is already the nuclear industry claimed they
– the fuel called MOX. The Sellafield proving a millstone around the were being built for. From there the
MOX Plant (SMP) is supposed to taxpayer’s neck. Officially its losses story turns back up the production
earn foreign currency by turning are “commercial in confidence”. line to describe the crippling effects
mixed oxides of plutonium and for other plants and processes
uranium derived from reprocessing Below is a description of how these – which are in turn handicapped
spent fuel into new fuel. The SMP two plants are failing to achieve what because of their own design flaws
1960: 1964: 1964:
Government White Paper scales Government White Paper, The Magnox reprocessing plant
back nuclear building plans to 3,000 Second Nuclear Programme, opened at Windscale for dual
megawatts, acknowledging that says 5,000 megawatts of new purpose of producing plutonium
coal generation was 25 per cent plant will be built between for nuclear weapons and for fast-
cheaper. In fact it was admitted to 1970 and1976. This turned breeder reactor fuel.
the House of Commons in 1963 that out to be the era of the
nuclear generation was more than advanced gas-cooled reactor
twice as expensive as coal. Among (AGR). Other designs were 1965:
other things very large research and rejected after much dithering. Proposed building programme
development costs were written off Minister for Power Fred Lee for AGRs increased to 8,000
when calculating the cost of nuclear told the House of Commons megawatts.
energy. Planning restrictions for of the AGR design: “We
nuclear plant were relaxed and a have won the jackpot this
total of 11 Magnox stations were time – we have the greatest
built, the last at Wylfa, Anglesey, breakthrough of all times.”
completed in 1968. It was three
years late.
8 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
and technical failures. At every stage the danger of a collapse of the is made into glass blocks have
it is the taxpayer who picks up the tanks or the consequences of an failed earlier than expected. Inside
bills for cleaning up. This is currently interruption in the 24-hour-a-day the sealed nuclear units, or cells, in
about £100 a year, or £2 a week, for supply of electricity and water that which these processes take place
each and every UK taxpayer, and are required to keep the tanks cool. the cranes and other remote handling
this figure is expected to continue Liquid storage of such dangerous equipment frequently broke down
rising for the foreseeable future, wastes is not a permanent solution. – probably because of the intense
for a clean-up that will last at least radiation. Modifications improved the
another 100 years. In 1990 a plant was built to convert plant to an output of 332 containers
1,355 cubic metres of this liquid a year by 1995 but it was still not
Vitrification plant waste into 8,000 glass blocks enough to clear the backlog.
For more than 40 years high-level – although even in this much safer
liquid waste has been stored at state the blocks would have to be A third production line was ordered
Sellafield with constant stirring closely monitored for a further 50 in the mid-1990s when it was clear
and cooling to stop radioactive years before they could be placed that the technology was not working
elements combining and causing an in a long-term repository. The plant, as designed. The volume of waste
explosive reaction. The NII became costing £240 million, was designed was supposed to be reduced by
concerned more than 10 years to clear the backlog of waste and 350 cubic metres over 14 years to
ago that these storage practices allow reprocessing to continue by get it down to safe and manageable
might become unsafe because of producing 600 glass blocks a year levels. Instead, in 2001 the volume
the state of the tanks. This concern from two production lines, with increased because the company
was repeated in the NII’s 2007 each glass block being placed in a continued reprocessing; meanwhile
report. The tanks are considered the container, known as a can. The plant failures in the vitrification plant
single installation most vulnerable did not function correctly. In the first meant production of glass blocks
to terrorist attacks and together two years to 1993 output was limited could not keep pace. The situation
contain far more dangerous to 114 containers a year. The Nuclear became so bad in September 2001
radioactivity than the Chernobyl Installations Inspectorate (NII) said a that both reprocessing plants were
reactor. The Irish Government has large number of “melters” in which the closed to avoid legal sanctions by
often expressed concern about liquid waste, sand and other materials the NII. At this time there were
1966: 1977: 1979:
First AGR construction begins. Windscale Inquiry inspector Conservative Energy Secretary,
Dungeness B in Kent becomes Justice Parker recommends David Howell, announces 10
an industrial legend for cost Thermal Oxide Reprocessing new Pressurised Water Reactors
overruns and delays and the first Plant (Thorp) at Sellafield (PWRs) to be built and says that
reactor is not commissioned for go-ahead on the (erroneous) nuclear power “is a cheaper form
19 years. It was still operating at assumption that plutonium would of electricity generation than any
only 50 per cent capacity in 1991. be needed for the fast-breeder known to man”.
reactor programme.
1977: 1983:
Last of seven AGR stations is Planning inquiry for first PWR at
ordered for Heysham, Lancashire, Sizewell in Suffolk starts. It lasts
to complete the 8,000 megawatt two years.
programme. The official CEGB
history described them as “one
of the major blunders of British
industrial policy”.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 9
THE BROKEN CHAIN:
BRITAIN’S SPENT FUEL
SYSTEM ISN’T WORKING
MAGNOX
REPROCESSING
(not working
to capacity) Pu U 94 92
SPENT FUEL
100 tonnes
PLUTONIUM
(from UK and STORAGE AND
overseas) PONDS 30,000 tonnes
(nearly full) URANIUM
(no known
economic
use)
THORP
REPROCESSING
(output drastically
reduced)
1983: 1986: 1987:
Government forced to abandon The world’s worst nuclear Sizewell B (to go alongside the
dumping low- and intermediate- accident occurs at Chernobyl, Magnox station Sizewell A)
level nuclear waste in the turning public opinion against approved after the Department
Atlantic because of combined nuclear power. In areas of of Energy claims: “Sizewell B is
environmental and union North Wales and Cumbria, likely to be the least cost option
pressure. where rain fell heavily after the for new generating plant”.
accident, sheep cannot be sold
to market for 20 years because of
contamination. In 2008 there are 1987:
still 11 farms and 10,000 sheep Nirex, a company owned by the
under restrictions. nuclear industry, formed to find
ways of getting rid of nuclear
waste.
10 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCEEVAPORATE
HIGHLY TOXIC AND TURN
AND RADIOACTIVE INTO GLASS
NUCLEAR WASTE BLOCKS
(VITRIFICATION)
(not working
to design)
MOX FUEL
(only 6 tonnes
produced in five
years – no hope SEND IT BACK
of using existing OVERSEAS
stockpile) OR STORE
IT IN UK
(no disposal
route exists)
1988: 1988: 1988:
Government abandons plans for Building of Sizewell B begins. It After the Government decides
a fast-breeder reactor programme is the first of a planned, but soon to privatise electricity production
to use plutonium stocks, abandoned, family of four PWR a “nuclear tax” is proposed by
because it is uneconomic “for the nuclear stations. The second was financial consultants Solomon
foreseeable future”. to be at Hinkley Point in Somerset Brothers. They say this will be
– where at the planning inquiry necessary when the electricity
the price for nuclear generation at industry is privatised to pay
Sizewell is quoted as 2.3 pence for extra cost of nuclear power
per kilowatt hour, later adjusted to generation compared with coal.
3.09 pence.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 111,550 cubic metres of high-level of vitrified waste against a target on improving production. In the
liquid waste, far more than there of 250 as being one of a “wide subsequent five years to March 2008
should have been. In 2002 range of excellent performance the three lines should have produced
Laurence Williams, the NII’s chief achievements”. In fact the “target” of 4,500 cans of vitrified waste; yet
inspector, said it would take 15 years 250 had been arrived at after higher the total was just 1,956 according to
to clear the backlog of high-level targets had been abandoned twice in the NII, which continues to express
liquid waste. The third vitrification the previous two years because the concern at the plant’s operation.
plant, built at a cost of £320 million, plant was failing even then to reach
came on line in 2003 to tackle the dramatically reduced expectations. Had the plant functioned as
waste backlog. Subsequently performance did designed then the backlog of
improve slightly. The best output the waste would have been cleared
Together, the three lines are plant has achieved still remains 482 by now; but production has been
designed to process 900 cans of cans of vitrified waste in 2005/06, less than half that required by the
vitrified blocks a year. The target just over half the original design Government’s safety inspectors.
output for this production line has target of 900. But even this was British Nuclear Fuels and its
been reduced repeatedly by British a short-lived level of output. The successor companies have said
Nuclear Group, the British Nuclear numbers dropped back again to again and again that they were
Fuels subsidiary which runs the 322 in the year to 31 March 2007. confident they would achieve the
site on behalf of the NDA, and The target for 2007/08 was 450 target set by the NII of reducing
now known as Sellafield Limited. cans, later reduced to 380; yet on 7 waste to “buffer levels” by 2015. It
Journalists and campaigners have February 2008 only 223 cans had appears on current performance this
learned over the years that this is been produced making even this will only be achieved by stopping or
standard procedure at Sellafield so reduced target difficult to reach. severely curtailing the operations of
managements can claim targets the reprocessing works.
have been met. An example came Overall in its first 11 years the
in 2003 when the chief executive vitrification plant throughput should Evaporators
of British Nuclear Fuels, Norman have been 6,600 cans. In fact the The vitrification plant is not the
Askew, referred in his annual report plant made just 2,400. Hundreds only technical headache in this
to the production of 333 containers of millions of pounds were spent most difficult of waste streams.
1989: 1989: 1990:
Magnox reactors are withdrawn Government suspends building of Nuclear levy is introduced to
from electricity privatisation. new (PWR) nuclear plant beyond cover the difference between the
The city would not buy the older Sizewell even though £30 million cost of generating nuclear energy
stations because of looming worth of parts have been ordered and coal – adding 11 per cent to
decommissioning costs. The for Hinkley C. electricity bills. Even this does
taxpayer is left with the bill. not truly cover the extra cost
because the original capital cost
of most stations had already been
1989: written off. The idea of the levy
AGRs and Sizewell B are was to pay for decommissioning
withdrawn from privatisation stations.
because city investors discover
that the cost of generating
nuclear power is far greater than
that of coal.
12 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCEThe volume of highly radioactive The failures of the vitrification up the cost of electricity. However,
liquid first has to be reduced by the and evaporator plants have it is a way of returning plutonium
use of evaporators. These are like forced Sellafield to scale back its relatively safely back to its country of
giant kettles, which concentrate the reprocessing operations to avoid origin. For countries like Switzerland,
liquid down so that it can be stored high-level waste accumulating. Not Germany and Japan, this is a better
in readiness for turning into glass to do so voluntarily would trigger alternative than deliveries of raw
blocks. This is another technology legal action by the NII. This has plutonium from Sellafield. The only
on which the wear and tear caused serious implications for the industry. current use for plutonium in this raw
by intense radiation seems to have As well as extra costs and potential state is for nuclear weapons and its
been underestimated. Whatever the job losses, the rest of the nuclear import would be a serious political
problem, the technology has not production line is affected. embarrassment for these countries,
performed as planned and the three all committed to nuclear non-
evaporators have had successive THE SELLAFIELD MOX PLANT proliferation. MOX fuel was seen as
faults and proved unable to deal with The production of MOX fuel is the solution to returning plutonium in
the volume of waste coming from the sole industrial and economic a safer form.
the two reprocessing works. One of justification for the continued
the evaporators has been shut since operation of the reprocessing Without the MOX plant, reprocessing
2005 although there are hopes of facilities at Sellafield. The plutonium to produce more and more surplus
restarting it in 2008. Problems with and uranium recovered from spent plutonium and uranium that has
corrosion shut another evaporator in fuel in powdered form are together no use is difficult to justify – even
October 2006. These have now been turned into pellets. These are then though Sellafield Limited, which
repaired but the third evaporator made up into new fuel rods for use operates the plant, still has money-
also had to be shut as a precaution in existing reactors. This is more making contracts to do so.
because of similar concerns; it is costly than traditional uranium fuel
expected to re-open soon. Because made from raw and newly mined The MOX plant, which employs 660
of the poor performances of all three ore. British Energy has refused to people, has gone disastrously wrong
evaporators a fourth evaporator has use it for the one British reactor that partly because of poor management,
been ordered at a cost of £90 million. can take it, Sizewell B, because it and partly through legal and
This will not be completed until 2011. is too expensive and would drive technical problems. First, the plant’s
1990: 1990: 1990:
Cost of building Sizewell B Department of Energy admits Days after a leaked paper reveals that
increases from £1.69 billion to that wave power is cheaper £2 billion could be saved if Sizewell B
£2.03 billion. than nuclear, six years after was cancelled the House of Commons
researchers at Harwell put Select Committee on Energy says
the price of wave power at it is “profoundly concerned” about
9.8 pence per kilowatt hour. misleading statements on the cost of
Current estimates are 4-5p. nuclear energy. The Central Electricity
As a result of the 9.8 pence Generating Board tells the public
calculation all research into inquiry into the building of Hinkley
wave power was cancelled. Point C PWR that the electricity would
cost 3.09 pence per kilowatt hour.
During the subsequent privatisation
debate the board puts forward a
figure of 6.25 pence. The Department
of Energy “apparently made no
attempt to obtain realistic costings”.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 13value for money was called into
question. The National Audit Office
revealed that the original 1993
estimate of £265 million for the cost
of the plant had risen to £490 million
by 2004. The Environment Agency’s
chief scientist, Dr Jan Pentreath said
in October 1998 that the agency
©Steve Bell 2000 – All Rights Reserved. First published in The Guardian
would never have sanctioned the
plant’s construction had officials
been asked for a licence in advance.
He said he would ask for a change in
the law so that in future the agency
could prevent “taxpayer’s money
being spent on speculative ventures”.
In 2001 the consultant Arthur D Little,
acting on behalf of the Department
of Trade and Industry, produced a
report for the Government that was
a classic example of the nuclear
industry’s approach to economics.
Steve Bell, political cartoonist and creator of the If… cartoon strip has been The report wrote off the capital cost
lampooning the nuclear industry for 20 years. When the Government claimed of the plant and said that over a
that the Thorp Reprocessing works would be a money-spinner the building 10-year period the expected orders
formed a background as a white elephant roamed across the pages of The for MOX would show a profit of
Guardian. £216 million over operating costs.
The figures to justify this report
were not made public and many
1990: 1991: 1992:
The Science and Policy Research Government announces plans International Atomic Energy
Unit at Sussex University for a nuclear waste repository Agency says the building up
describes as “misleading and costing between £2.5 billion and of vast stocks of plutonium at
inaccurate” claims that Thorp £3.5 billion to be completed by reprocessing plants “poses
would make a profit of £500 2005. a major political and security
million in first 10 years. The problem”.
extra cost of reprocessing
spent fuel at Thorp rather than 1991:
storing it is £1.7 billion to the Christopher Harding for British
taxpayer, the researchers say; Nuclear Fuels says the first waste
and reprocessing produces 160 will be sent back to countries
times as much nuclear waste of origin before the end of the
compared with storing spent fuel, decade. By 2008 none has been
and is three to four times more sent back.
expensive.
14 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCEdoubted their reliability, because ships and collecting the eight strings to a parliamentary question, Energy
profit predictions were based on the of fuel (weighing only 4 tonnes) cost Minister Malcolm Wicks admitted
assumptions that there would be firm the taxpayer £113 million. To date that the plant had only managed
orders for MOX for the first decade, the Japanese have not re-ordered 2.6 tonnes of production in 2007
and that the plant would work as MOX and that country’s plutonium – and a total of only 5.2 tonnes since
designed. Neither assumption was remains in store at Sellafield. There opening in 2001.
correct. Nonetheless, faced with a is now no policy in place to deal with
Government consultant’s report on it. It is guarded by the British armed The Royal Society reported in
its potential profitability and the fact nuclear police force – again at the September 2007 that the MOX
it was already built, the Environment taxpayer’s expense. plant, designed to produce 120
Agency granted an operating licence. tonnes of MOX fuel a year, was
The Government then gave the plant Perhaps the most devastating now expected to produce only 40
the go-ahead to start up in 2001. problem is that the MOX plant does tonnes a year. This was according to
not work – at least not as designed. evidence presented by the Nuclear
In the event orders from Japan, In fact commissioning has taken so Decommissioning Authority (NDA),
expected to be SMP’s biggest long that the first few orders from the Government quango in charge of
customer, and on which the profit Switzerland and Germany for the Sellafield, to the Royal Society; but
forecast was made, have never fuel could not be completed on time. on current form it may never produce
materialised. Quality control To avoid penalties under breach of anything like that amount. Sellafield
documents dispatched from contract this fuel had to be made in Limited’s spokeswoman said it was
Sellafield with the first small a MOX plant in Belgium at British still early days and the company
consignment of MOX fuel, made in taxpayers’ expense. In July 2004 hoped to ramp up production.
a demonstration plant, were found the plant had still not produced any However, the accumulated financial
to be falsified. In the subsequent useable fuel and its losses were put losses on the MOX plant since
scandal, Japan insisted the fuel be at £600 million. In 2007 the plant it was built have now become
sent back to England in the armed had still not got a full operating “commercially confidential”. This is
ships which had originally delivered licence, even though this was a classic blocking tactic for refusing
it but which had already made the originally expected to be granted in to reveal information under the
return trip to Britain. Returning the 2003. In February 2008 in answer Freedom of Information Act.
1993: 1993: 1993:
It is revealed that the 11 per cent Economists estimate that the Thorp order book for the first 10
nuclear levy on electricity bills has projected income from the years (in tonnes of spent fuel
not been put aside for dealing with nuclear levy between 1990 and to be reprocessed) is Japan
decommissioning costs and waste 1998 will represent a £9.1 billion 2,673, UK 2,158, Germany 969,
but spent on building Sizewell B. subsidy for the nuclear industry. Switzerland 422, Spain 145, Italy
Nuclear Electric, the Government- 143, Sweden 140, Netherlands
owned company formed to run 53, Canada 2. By 2008 none
the nuclear stations when the rest 1993: of the resultant waste has been
of the electricity generating plant Completion date for Sizewell returned to the country of origin.
was privatised, claims income B slips to November 1994, 11
from the new reactors would pay months later than planned.
for decommissioning old stock. 1994:
MPs liken this to Robert Maxwell’s Government announces nuclear
stealing from the company reviews, one into whether new
pension fund to finance his nuclear stations can be built
business. and the second into whether the
industry can be privatised.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 15The result of technical failure, It is presented to the public as a is stored. The existing Magnox
falsification of quality control data and recycling technology, which was power stations were due to close
shortage of orders is – apart from the original intention, but it has not by 2010 so that the reprocessing
mounting financial losses – large and turned out like that. works could complete its work by
increasing quantities of unwanted and 2012; but this closure has been
unusable foreign-owned plutonium The original Magnox reprocessing postponed until 2016 “at least”,
and uranium being held at Sellafield works was opened in 1964 to according to the NDA. The plant
at taxpayers’ expense. Continued extract plutonium from spent fuel. was originally designed to reprocess
reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel The extracted plutonium could, in 1,500 tonnes of spent fuel a year
from British and foreign reactors theory, be used for Britain’s nuclear and unlike Sellafield’s more modern
will only make this situation worse. weapons arsenal and for use in fast nuclear facilities worked close to
It will create ever larger stockpiles breeder reactors, a technology then its design capacity for many years,
of plutonium and uranium for which thought a practical possibility for altogether reprocessing more than
there is no use or planned disposal large-scale electricity production. 20,000 tonnes of spent fuel. It is the
route. The Royal Society in its 2007 The Magnox plant, which employs workhorse that has produced most
report on the problem said continuing 830 people, is still in operation and of Sellafield’s unused stockpile of
to stockpile very dangerous material is set to remain open until all the 103 tonnes of plutonium and more
was not a long term option. “Failure fuel from the UK’s older Magnox than 30,000 tonnes of uranium.
to develop and implement a strategy reactors is reprocessed. The
for the management of separated industry says that reprocessing is Recently, despite refurbishment,
plutonium could result in significant the best disposal route for this fuel the deterioration through age of the
avoidable costs and security risks.” because it cannot be stored for long, facilities has reduced throughput,
as it deteriorates. The deterioration according to the NDA. After
A TALE OF TWO REPROCESSING is due to the fact that the means of processing 1,008 tonnes in the year
PLANTS – MAGNOX removing the fuel from the reactor to April 2005 the figure dropped
Reprocessing of spent fuel is core, the means of transporting it to 243 tonnes and 594 tonnes in
designed to recover the plutonium and of storing it all involve the fuel’s the following years. In the first 10
and uranium from fuel which has immersion in water, which corrodes months of 2007/08 401 tonnes of
already been used in a reactor. the magnesium cans in which it Magnox fuel had been reprocessed.
1995: 1996, MAY: 1996, JULY:
Government decides to make a “The privatisation of part of the Sell-off of the newer nuclear
second attempt to privatise AGRs nuclear power industry, set out stations goes ahead. Government
and still-to-be-completed Sizewell in a white paper on 9 May, looks receives £1.9 billion, less than
B. Announcing plans to privatise likely to be a particularly creative the cost of building Sizewell B
Nuclear Electric the Government example of the well-honed pressurised water reactor with all
reduces the clean-up liabilities technique of bribing voters with seven AGR stations thrown in for
from £10.5 billion to £7.2 billion their own money. In this case, the nothing.
without explanation. bribe may be financed not just
by selling assets that taxpayers
have already paid for once, but
by money borrowed from future
tax payers too.” (The Economist
magazine)
16 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCEComparing this performance with radioactivity from reprocessing in Thorp would also deal with spent
the NDA’s three-year work plan the Irish Sea are supposed to be fuel from pressurised and light-water
of 2005 shows how targets have “close to zero”. This agreement reactors being operated elsewhere
been missed. The NDA target was meant the Magnox reprocessing in the world. However, by the time
2,520 tonnes, but the Magnox works works had to close by 2012 so that Thorp was built in the 1990s the
have only managed 1,238 tonnes it could be cleaned and so that fast-breeder reactor programme had
throughput so far, less than 50 per debris could be removed to bring been abandoned as economically
cent. This reduction of output has measured radioactivity levels down unviable. Despite this the
not been due to the ageing of the markedly by the 2020 deadline. This Government gave the go-ahead for
Magnox facility but, as Sellafield commitment has been abandoned the plant. The reasoning was mainly
Limited now admits, to the failure of because of the backlog of Magnox that the nuclear industry had signed
the evaporators and the vitrification fuel and the closure put back to 2016 foreign contracts to reprocess spent
plant downstream, which has meant “or later”, by the NDA. fuel; it claimed the £2.3 billion plant
reprocessing being slowed. This would make a £500 million profit for
has led to the closure of the Magnox A TALE OF TWO REPROCESSING the UK economy by reprocessing
reprocessing works being postponed PLANTS –THORP 7,000 tonnes of fuel in the first 10
for at least four years. In summary, By the time a second reprocessing years of operation.
Magnox still has to reprocess a facility, the Thermal Oxide
backlog of spent fuel because large Reprocessing Works (Thorp), was At the time the plant had a full order
parts of the nuclear waste disposal discussed in the 1970s and built book for the first 10 years and most
chain have failed. 20 years later much had changed of the second decade of the plant’s
in the nuclear industry. Thorp was planned lifetime. The optimism
These setbacks mean the UK may designed to deal with spent fuel from that more new orders would be
be unable to meet its commitment Britain’s second generation of AGRs, forthcoming was misplaced, however:
made in 1998 under the OSPAR currently run by British Energy. some were subsequently cancelled
Convention to progressively reduce Plutonium was no longer being and there have been no new ones.
the concentration of radioactive recovered for nuclear weapons,
substances in the marine but in the 1970s the dream was still Yet before the plant opened
environment. By 2020 levels of to use it for fast-breeder reactors. consultants Touche Ross produced
1996: 1997: 1997, OCTOBER:
Despite calls for its cancellation John Gummer, with his last It is announced that two nuclear
because of delays and cost act as Environment Secretary waste stores are to be built at
overruns Sizewell B opens. The refuses permission for a pilot Sellafield to take intermediate-
cost of the station is £2.3 billion. deep repository for nuclear waste level waste for the next 50 years.
Power generation cost is not under Sellafield partly because Another 10 planned for the future.
the 3.02 pence per kilowatt hour of the industry’s faulty scientific
predicted at the public inquiry but case, despite spending £200
6.25 pence, more than double the million on site investigations. The
cost of coal and gas. plan to get the depository built by
2015 is abandoned.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 17a report that supported claims that
the plant would be profitable. The
report was published with most
financial figures expunged by civil
servants. Outside the industry and
Government few thought the report
was reliable, and so it turned out to
be – partly because the Thorp plant
has never worked as designed either.
In the first 11 years of operation it
reprocessed 5,729 tonnes of fuel
– well short of the 7,000 tonnes
needed to make it profitable.
In the plant’s twelfth year only a
further 51 tonnes of spent fuel
had been reprocessed when a
disastrous leak, unnoticed by staff
for nine months until its discovery in
April 2005, forced Thorp to close.
Credit: PA Photo/British Nuclear Fuels
It remained closed for two years
while investigations and repairs were
undertaken; the company was fined
£500,000 for negligence, and had
£2 million deducted by the NDA for
failing to meet safety standards.
Subsequently the staff underwent
The Sellafield MOX plant in the foreground with the Thorp reprocessing plant new safety training. The leak could
behind. Both plants have failed to work as designed. not be repaired but because it can
1998: 1998: 1999:
Deputy Prime Minister John Chancellor Gordon Brown House of Lords Science and
Prescott signs OSPAR announces plan to privatise British Technology Committee says
agreement to progressively Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), a plan later ministers should abandon policy
reduce concentrations of abandoned and twice resurrected. of regarding plutonium as a
radioactive substances in the It has never happened. valuable resource and reclassify
marine environment as a result of it as waste.
emissions from Sellafield so that
by 2020 they add “close to zero” 1998:
to historic levels. He says: “I was The Royal Society says stocks of 1999:
ashamed of Britain’s record in plutonium are “unacceptably high, The first shipment of MOX fuel to
the past but now we have shed posing an environmental threat Japan (made in the small MOX
the tag of the Dirty Old Man and creating fear that some may Demonstration Facility) takes
of Europe and have joined the be stolen for use in illicit nuclear place amid furious protests from
family of nations.” weapons.” Caribbean countries about the
dangers.
18 VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCEbe by-passed the plant was given down. This meant the fuel slipped Society in 2007, has now also
permission to test-run in 2007. back down into the ponds. It took been postponed. Even by the most
Although this was judged a success until the end of March 2008 to fix the optimistic calculations Thorp will
the plant did not re-start. problem, when 100 tonnes of foreign have to remain open until 2015 to
fuel were moved into the plant for the fulfil contracts that were due to be
The failure of the evaporators first stage of reprocessing. completed in 2003.
and the slow throughput of the
vitrification plant meant that, like the By then Thorp had, in effect, been STORAGE RUNNING OUT
Magnox reprocessing plant, Thorp’s closed for 36 months and will never Another problem that Thorp’s
waste could not be dealt with. The again operate at more than a fraction prolonged closure has caused is
NDA said in November 2007 that of its design capacity. Before Thorp lack of storage space for spent fuel
the only problem holding back the opened British Nuclear Fuels, the that continues to be delivered from
restart of Thorp was the lack of Government-owned company Britain’s seven AGRs. In May 2007,
evaporation capacity. By early 2008, that then ran the plant, estimated when the Government signalled its
possibly because of the problems that the weekly cost of keeping it decision to sell a further tranche of
that prolonged closure of Thorp closed would be £2 million – so a British Energy shares, the company
was causing to upstream storage three-year closure is very costly warned potential buyers that if
capacity (see below), Sellafield for the taxpayer. The 890 staff still Sellafield was unable to continue to
Limited planned to restart the plant. have to be paid. One of the effects take spent fuel from its reactors for
Because of the restriction caused by of this prolonged shutdown is that storage the company would be unable
the lack of evaporator capacity until the contracts to reprocess foreign to reload them with new fuel. These
2011 the plan was to put a maximum and domestic spent fuel, claimed reactors, responsible for around
of 200 tonnes of fuel a year into still to be worth £2.5 billion, still 14 per cent of the UK’s electricity
Thorp for three years to try to fulfil cannot be completed. The NDA also supply, would have to be gradually
its foreign contracts. Yet another said the inability to complete the shut down, the company said.
technical failure struck immediately, contracts means the 2010 closure
when the lifting mechanism to get date for the plant, proposed in the In October 2007 some deliveries of
the fuel from the storage ponds company’s business plan, and spent Magnox fuel to Sellafield were
into the reprocessing works broke reported in evidence to the Royal also suspended. Both types of fuel
1999: 2000: 2001:
Japan orders investigation after Government postpones plan to Government conducts another
BNFL admits forging quality sell off Sellafield until 2002 “after energy review. BNFL proposes
control data for MOX fuel. the election” according to the six new nuclear stations mostly
Department of Trade and Industry on the sites of Magnox stations
that are closed or due to close.
2000:
Japan refuses MOX fuel and is 2000:
paid £20 million in compensation. BNFL announces closure dates
The whole episode, which for the eight Magnox stations
involves sending armed boats to – the last being Wylfa on
bring the fuel back to UK, costs Anglesey in 2010, so the Magnox
£113 million. reprocessing plant can deal with
all 12,000 tonnes of spent fuel
remaining and close in 2012.
VOODOO ECONOMICS AND THE DOOMED NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE 19are received at the same handling which time it was expected that result the future of Thorp remains
facilities. There is now a backlog of Thorp would have opened again. parlous and it may have a knock-on
fuel at Sellafield to be stored and Papers obtained a year later under effect on British Energy’s ability to
reprocessed. However, the NDA will the Freedom of Information Act, produce electricity from its advanced
not be drawn on how much storage although heavily censored, detailed gas cooled reactors.
space for spent fuel remains, nor a series of measures to relieve the
how soon it will run out, stating that pressure. This included ordering a When the NDA came into existence
the main reason for the suspension number of new storage flasks and in April 2005 to deal with the
of shipments was a change of reorganising existing storage ponds. country’s nuclear legacy, it said it
priorities ordered by the Authority in would review with the Government
the nuclear clean-up programme, not In the meantime an average of whether Thorp should be closed
a shortage of space. The NDA says 300 tonnes of spent AGR fuel and the remaining reprocessing
the existing storage ponds have been has continued to be delivered to contracts cancelled. The NDA
reorganised to squeeze as much Sellafield each year and none has confirmed in November 2007 that
fuel in as possible. Sellafield Limited been cleared through reprocessing. this review was ongoing, but in
said it was reorganising storage In order to free storage space for February 2008 the Department of
facilities and there was “ample room these continued deliveries some Business, Enterprise and Regulatory
for increasing the capacity of the of the fuel already in ponds has to Reform (BERR) denied closure was
storage pond”. The company said be removed for reprocessing. The on the agenda. The Government’s
the NDA was re-examining all the whole complex was designed for policy was that Thorp should remain
options as far as dealing with spent a constant throughput of fuel into open until all the contracts had been
Magnox fuel and would be making an Thorp. completed. Closure would cause
announcement soon. serious political difficulties – partly
From the information already in because it would be an admission
However, these answers do not the public domain it is clear that that past Government policies
alter that fact that when Thorp first Sellafield’s waste stream is not to continue reprocessing and to
closed in 2005 the official line was running as planned and that there is sanction the MOX plant were serious
that there was a year’s storage an increasing backlog of both spent mistakes on technical and financial
space available at Sellafield – by fuel and all forms of waste. As a grounds.
2001, OCTOBER: 2001, OCTOBER: 2001, NOVEMBER:
Review reports that onshore wind Government gives permission to BNFL reports to the Government,
farms will provide energy at 1.5 operate the new large Sellafield its sole shareholder, that it has
to 2.5 pence per kilowatt hour, MOX Plant – nine years after a “net asset deficit” – in other
offshore wind 2 to 4 pence and British Nuclear Fuels’ original words, it is bankrupt. Under the
nuclear power 3 to 4.5 pence. planning application and after five 1985 Companies Act for the
The nuclear power price was said public consultations. directors to continue trading
to be comparable to wave power, without informing shareholders
long derided as too expensive it was bankrupt would be a
by the Department of Trade and criminal offence. Trade and
Industry. Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt
decides to create a public body,
the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA), to take on the
debts and assets of BNFL.
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