DECC consultation on funded decommissioning and waste transfer pricing methodology

Last Monday D.E.C.C. held a consultation event to discuss funded decommissioning and waste transfer pricing methodology.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry really, a few things were very clear to me:

1) despite the bravado of the nuclear industry and the government about nuclear new build in the UK it certainly isn't clear that UK new build will go ahead, as one nuke industry official pointed out if the price ain't right they'll go elsewhere.

2) The nuclear industry think that the government are trying to extract money out of them for the storage of legacy waste.

3) The government wouldn't know what a transparent pricing methodology was if it bit them on the bum!

4) Even though the government have removed many of what may be perceived as barriers to nuclear development from the strategies as they stood, the Nuke Suits didn't seem to feel that they have gone far enough! It seems that the utilities want the government to do it all for them (financially speaking).

On the subject of pricing methodology the government have not made explicit the assumptions in their financial models, which even if they had, they would all turn out to be pie in the sky within my lifetime, let alone the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren and their children.

The government at present have no intention of getting a significant amount of money from developers for decommissioning up front, there is no provision for early decommissioning when I pressed the industry about what kind of events would qualify a plant to be decommissioned early they cited everything except a Chernobyl style accident, e.g run out of money not granted a license, I pressed them further about a catastrophic release and they conceded that this was one scenario that could qualify -  I then drove home that of all the scenarios discussed it was possibly the most likely based on past experience and that were such an event to occur the UK population would have a damn sight more to worry about than money given that huge tracts of the UK would become uninhabitable. They didnbt like that.

The Government also talk about the developers having to demonstrate "insolvency remoteness" how do you define insolvency remoteness let alone demonstrate it? another flight of fancy!

Go to the following websites and tell the government that what little protection the strategies offered the taxpayer and the public before have been undermined by their most recent consultation. Tell them that no new nuclear should be built before suitable disposal has been DEMONSTRATED in the UK.

Interestingly the nuke suits asked about exporting our waste for disposal which Hergen Hayes indicated would not be possible, saying that any radioactivity exported from this country would still have to come back to its country of origin for storage eventually under Europoean law - wander how long it will take them to undermine that piece of legislation?

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/consultations/rev_fdp_guide/rev_fdp_guide.aspx

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/consultations/waste_trans/waste_trans.aspx

I will add some photos of our visit as soon as I can get them off my phone! in the meantime check out http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net