Cost overruns for core cleanup projects at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site are expected to total £913 million ($1.16 billion), the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee said Wednesday.
In a report on the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s efforts to reduce the risk left by former nuclear weapons and power operations at the West Cumbria complex, the parliamentary panel said significant progress had been made since its last evaluation in 2015. It specifically noted reductions in schedule slips and anticipated budget busting at 14 major projects that are expected to cost £6 billion ($7.7 billion).
However, “there is still a long way to go and the NDA cannot afford to be complacent. Most major projects at Sellafield are still significantly delayed, with expected combined cost overruns of £913 million,” lawmakers wrote. “The NDA has not systematically reviewed why these projects keep running into difficulties, or analysed properly the constraints it says prevent them from making faster progress. Until this work is completed, we remain sceptical about its long-term strategy to decommission Sellafield.”
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is an executive nondepartmental agency of the U.K. government charged with overseeing nuclear cleanup jobs around the nation. It is the parent body to Sellafield Ltd., which conducts nuclear reprocessing and remediation across the property.
The committee issued seven specific findings and recommendations for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, including:
- There is still no assessment from NDA and Sellafield Ltd. regarding how the complexity of operations and other challenges at Sellafield are directly keeping them from more rapidly reducing risk at the site. They should study the matter and report back to the committee within six months with detail on how this information will contribute to several upcoming planning documents.
- Lessons learned have not been gleaned from canceled projects and other errors. Three projects alone cost £586 million ($747.6 million) before being canceled in the last six years, the report says. While the NDA said it has found new cost-savings approaches for faster risk reduction, the committee wants a report within three months on how this will lead to cost savings.
