Nuclear Energy

Not only have governments nationalized nuclear waste management, they have also taken over
the responsibility for contamination from the other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including the
mines, the enrichment and the reprocessing facilities, even when these facilities are in the private
sector.
5. Nationalisation of Decommissioning Costs
Decommissioning a nuclear reactor once its operating life ends is a very long term and
complicated operation as all the parts of the plant have become radioactive, and hence it is also very
costly. Nuclear plant operators are required to set aside a certain part of their income during the
working lifetime of the reactor, to meet future decommissioning expenses.
Decommissioning costs are difficult to estimate, because there is little experience with
decommissioning commercial-scale plants. Estimates for decommissioning costs range from an
average of $ 300 million in the US to £1 billion in the UK per 1GW reactor. The French and
Swedish nuclear industries expect decommissioning costs to be between 10 and 15 % of
construction costs. ccxlv
Almost everywhere, nuclear plant operators have underestimated decommissioning costs
and have set aside insufficient funds to cover these expenses, and expect governments to step in and
pay the deficit - in another subsidy to the industry. This has already happened in the UK, where
failure of arrangements to fund decommissioning costs of the nuclear reactors operated by the
private sector company British Energy has resulted in transfer of liability of billions of euros on to
future taxpayers; according to an estimate by Steve Thomas, Professor for Energy Policy at
University of Greenwich, this could be as much as €90bn. ccxlvi
In the US too, in June 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission published concerns that
the owners were not setting aside sufficient funds. ccxlvii This shortfall is expected to also run into
billions of dollars. ccxlviii Obviously, considering the grip that the nuclear industry has over the US
government, the owners are confident that once the plant has ceased operation, any shortfall would
be met by the government!
An Important Comment on Waste and Decommissioning Liabilities: The key point with nuclear
energy, as different from all other technologies, is that once a nuclear plant begins operation, even if
the nuclear plant is shut down a few years later if found to be uneconomical, the lengthy time
needed to decommission the reactor, and the thousands of years for which the waste will have to be
managed, cannot be reduced. This means that irrespective of how short a time a nuclear plant
operates, the waste management and decommissioning expenses cannot be reduced. Therefore, if
the private plant operator fails for whatever reasons, the government will have to bear these
expenses.
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