NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING AUTHORITY ... - Pinsent Masons

Update
September 2005
International Construction & Energy
Nuclear decommissioning Authority Publishes Draft Strategy
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (the NDA), the non-departmental public body
established by the Energy Act 2004 to manage the UK's nuclear legacy, published its draft
strategy on 11 August 2005 for public consultation.
The NDA, which became fully operational on 1 April 2005,
has taken over responsibility for the operation,
decommissioning and clean up of the UK's 20 civil nuclear
sites. Its draft strategy sets out exactly how it intends to
fulfil that responsibility over the course of the next five
years and beyond.
The NDA’s Six Priorities
The draft strategy states the NDA's top six priorities over the
next five years as being to:
1 ‘create robust, costed and funded plans to clean up
sites based on a comprehensive understating of the
liabilities;
2 demonstrate real progress in reducing high hazards
in legacy facilities, especially Sellafield;
3 complete competitions for managing and operating
nearly all our sites;
4 determine a better approach to interim
Intermediate Level Waste storage and Low Level
Waste Disposal;
5 accelerate the decommissioning time-scales for
Magnox sites; and
6 define end states and agreed time scales for all
sites.’
The number one decommissioning priority is dealing with
the high hazard legacy facilities at Sellafield and Dounreay.
The full scale of these operations, including the extent and
nature of the contaminated land at those sites is, by the
NDA's own admission, not yet fully understood. The initial
estimated cost of the clean up of UK sites has already
increased from £48bn to £56bn. Once the NDA has a better
understanding of what is required to clean up those high
hazard facilities, this estimate is likely to increase further.
The NDA also aims, within 25 years, not only to achieve final
clearance of 6 sites but to have all 11 Magnox reactor sites
cleared and available for alternative uses. This is a significant
acceleration of the current Government and British Nuclear
Group's proposed 125 year programmes.
Acceleration of the Magnox decommissioning is, however,
dependent on finding a long term solution to storage of the
intermediate level waste (ILW) from the Magnox sites, or at
least an alternative interim storage solution to the current
method of storing the waste in facilities on each reactor site.
Along with the management of high level waste from
Sellafield, encouraging the government to make a decision in
relation to long term management of ILW as well as
considering new and better solutions to the disposal of low
level waste (LLW) than the current facilities at Drigg can
offer, are the NDA's top priorities in relation to radioactive
waste management.
To that end, the NDA has now disclosed that the first
contract for site management and operations which it
intends to compete is for the management of the LLW
disposal facilities at Drigg, possibly together with a new LLW
facility at Dounreay.
That first competition will begin in April 2006, with a view to
placing the contracts before the end of next year. After that,
the NDA intends to compete packages of contracts: the nine
closed Magnox 1 stations will be bundled into two packages
and competed in 2007, followed by Harwell and Winfrith as
a package in 2008. The remaining facilities at Dounreay
(other than the LLW facility) will also be competed in 2008
and Sellafield and Windscale will follow in 2009.
The rest of the strategy emphasises, amongst other things,
the NDA's commitment to transparency and to ensuring the
1 Berkeley, Bradwell, Hinkley Point A, Dungeness A and Sizewell A as one package, and Calder Hall, Chapelcross, Trawsfyndd and
Hunterston A as another.
Continued on reverse

maintenance of a nuclear skills pool.
The strategy confirms the NDA's budget of £2bn per annum
and envisages that an increasing proportion of this will be
spent on decommissioning activities over the coming years.
What the strategy does not deal with is how that budget is
to be funded in the event that the European Commission's
ongoing State Aid enquiry reaches an adverse conclusion.
The NDA is required to submit its final strategy to the
government with a view to obtaining its approval before the
end of March 2006. The public consultation period expires
on 11 November 2005. Anyone wishing to comment on the
draft strategy should contact Kelly Jackson, NDA Strategy
Consultation, Pelham House, Calderbridge, Cumbria, CA20
1DB or email strategy.consultation@nda.gov.uk.
A full copy of the draft strategy can be obtained at:
http://www.nda.gov.uk/documents/nda_draft_strategy_for_
consultation_2005.pdf
© Pinsent Masons 2005
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