The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said this week it expects to spend £3.1 billion ($3.9 billion) in its upcoming 2019-2020 budget year.
Just over £2.9 billion ($3.7 billion) of that will be spent on its nuclear cleanup, reprocessing, and waste management operations around the nation. The remaining money be directed toward non-site-specific activities, according to the NDA’s draft business plan for April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2022.
The U.K. government would pay £2.2 billion ($2.8 billion) of the costs, with the rest coming from payments for nuclear fuel reprocessing and other income sources.
The anticipated costs – specifically £3.112 billion – are slightly lower than £3.146 billion in the current 2018-2019 plan, the NDA business document says. Income, though, is expected to rise from £877 million.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is a nondepartmental government agency that oversees, and in some major locations directly manages, environmental remediation of the nation’s nuclear legacy. Its work covers 17 different sites.
The nearly 15-year-old agency has taken its share of lumps for its work in recent years – just last month, a committee of Parliament said cost overruns at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing and cleanup complex could reach £913 million ($1.16 billion) due to problems in a number of major projects. In an introduction to this week’s report, NDA CEO David Peattie briefly addressed those issues: “We have quite rightly been subjected to scrutiny from independent regulatory authorities who have challenged NDA’s strategic governance.”
Sellafield, former location of plutonium production for the nation’s nuclear arsenal and of early nuclear power development, is the keystone cleanup program. The Cumbria facility is wrapping up its reprocessing mission, which will leave just remediation.
Managing Sellafield Ltd., the wholly owned NDA subsidiary that runs Europe’s largest nuclear site, is expected to cost an even £2 billion ($2.5 billion). More than half of that is for decommissioning and cleanup costs, followed by management and capital expenditures.
The facility in November formally retired its Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, which over 24 years recycled nearly 10,000 metric tons of spent fuel from 30 customers in nine countries. The Magnox Reprocessing Plant, which reprocesses fuel from the nation’s now-retired Magnox reactors, is due to complete its mission in 2020, Peattie wrote.
“These two landmark developments will transform Sellafield, the UK’s largest and most complex nuclear site, from an operational business into an organisation that is wholly focused on decommissioning” Peattie stated.
Beyond Sellafield, the top planned expenses for 2019-2020 are Magnox Ltd., the soon-to-be NDA subsidiary that is decommissioning the same-named reactors, at £475 million ($604 million); Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd., cleaning up the former fast-reactor research and development site in Scotland, at £185 million ($235 million); and Low Level Waste Repository Ltd., at £68 million ($86.6 million).
The draft business plan lists dozens of activities anticipated over the three-year stretch across the NDA complex, including:
- Initiating waste retrievals from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo in 2019-2020. Peattie called the silo and the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo, both at Sellafield, “two of the group’s most hazardous facilities and a priority for the UK.”
- Beginning inactive commissioning of waste extraction gear for the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo in 2019-2020, with retrieval starting in the 2020-2022 period.
- Completing defueling of the Magnox reactor at Wylfa in 2019-2020.
NDA Picks New Boss for Magnox Decommissioning
Separately, an executive with a background in nuclear cleanup is set next year to assume leadership of the company managing decommissioning of the 12 Magnox nuclear sites – mostly retired power reactors.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on Monday announced the selection of Lawrie Haynes as chair-designate of Magnox Ltd. He will take over on Sept. 1, 2019, when the company passes from private contractor Cavendish Fluor Partnership to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the NDA.
“It is a privilege to be given this opportunity to lead and help shape the new organisation as it becomes a subsidiary of the NDA later next year,” Haynes said in a prepared statement. “I am really looking forward to working with the Board and new executive team to support the workforce in carrying out this important clean-up programme on behalf of the nation.”
Lawrie’s previous experience includes CEO of the British Nuclear Group, a nuclear remediation provider and subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., before it was broken up for sale in 2017. He subsequently served as president of Rolls-Royce’s Land and Sea Division, which provides pressure water reactors for Royal Navy submarines, from 2013 to 2016.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced last year it would as of Aug. 31, 2019, cancel Cavendish Fluor’s contract to operate Magnox Ltd. The 2014 contract will end nine years earlier than originally planned. An all-new management team and executive board will then take over on Sept. 1 under the aegis of the NDA.
The agency did not respond by deadline to a request for additional information regarding establishment of new management at Magnox Ltd.
The Cavendish Fluor contract proved particularly troublesome for the U.K. government. In 2017, the NDA agreed to pay £97.5 million to settlements from EnergySolutions and Bechtel, which had formed a joint venture to compete for the Magnox decommissioning work. In reviewing the EnergySolutions lawsuit, the U.K. High Court said the NDA had “manipulated” the procurement to prevent Cavendish Fluor from being ousted from consideration. In October 2017, the U.K. National Audit Office said the procurement cost taxpayers in the nation up to £122 million.
An independent inquiry of the botched procurement is ongoing. In interim findings issued in October 2017, the inquiry leveled a number of criticisms at the NDA, including using too many “pass/fail criteria” in judging the four contract bids.
There was no word this week from the NDA or U.K. Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy on when the inquiry might conclude.
