Prioritizing work pays off for NDA
12 July 2011
By prioritizing key areas of work, the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has been able to do more work for less cost. It said that both expenditure and income were slightly below budget in 2010-11.
The NDA owns all the Magnox gas-cooled reactors as well as old research sites and fuel cycle facilities from the UK nuclear program and is responsible for their decommissioning. Its expenditure is funded by a mixture of grant funding and commercial income. As part of its spending review in October 2010, the UK government allocated £12 billion ($19.1 billion) to the NDA over the next four years, of which £3 billion ($4.7 billion) is to be generated from commercial income. In its annual report for the year ended March 2011, the NDA said that it kept its expenditure within its budget of £2.9 billion ($4.6 billion) "while ensuring that key areas of our program were prioritized, delivering more work than planned for less cost."
Income from the NDA's electricity generation outperformed the budget by £180 million ($285 million) due to "continued excellent performance" at its remaining Magnox power plants, Oldbury and Wylfa. Unit 2 at Oldbury was shut down on 30 June, while unit 1 is expected to continue operating until the end of 2012. The two-unit Wylfa plant is also set to shut down in 2012.
The NDA's income has also been supplemented by the sale of assets, including land. Following the conclusion of the transfer of the Springfields site and business to Westinghouse earlier in 2011, options for the future of the Capenhurst site "have been examined and a commercial deal is anticipated to conclude during the next financial year."
The NDA accounts for the future cost of the decommissioning and clean-up of its 'legacy' sites by way of the Nuclear Provision. The combination of increased Sellafield costs and decreased costs for the rest of the estate has resulted in a net increase of some £4 billion ($6.3 billion) to the Nuclear Provision for 2010-11, taking the total figure to just over £49 billion ($78 billion). The Nuclear Provision can be broken down as: the cost of decommissioning the Magnox sites at £8 billion ($12.7 billion); the costs of Springfields and Capenhurst of £1 billion ($1.6 billion); the cost of constructing and operating waste management facilities of £4 billion ($6.3 billion); the cost of decommissioning the Sellafield site at £32 billion ($50.7 billion); and the cost of decommissioning other sites at £4 billion ($6.3 billion).
Tony Fountain, CEO of the NDA, said, "A vitally important activity over the last year has been the finalization and publication of our revised Strategy, produced five years after our first, and outlining a clear way forward for the next 10-20 years."
"We believe our revised strategy will deliver the mission in the most appropriate and cost-effective way... In particular, our absolute top priority must be on addressing and removing the intolerable risks that exist at some of the ageing facilities at Sellafield and Dounreay, followed by a reduction in the more manageable risks and hazards around the estate. These are the most urgent challenges we face and addressing these priorities inevitably influences the allocation of resources for the rest of our sites."
However, Fountain noted, "The events in Japan remind us of the need to remain ever vigilant to maintain the UK nuclear industry's strong safety record. They provide confirmation, if it were needed, that our focus on prioritizing resources towards the high hazard facilities is absolutely the best course of action and we remain totally committed in this respect."
"Areas for attention for the coming year will be operational performance of the Magnox Operating Program (MOP) aligned with defueling progress, implementation of the new Sellafield Performance Plan, together with the ongoing construction of Evaporator D, and completion of the competition for a new Dounreay parent body organization," he said. "Other major challenges are around the effective management of nuclear materials and waste, and here we plan to make use of our existing infrastructure, such as waste processing and storage facilities, to deal with the growing amounts of decommissioning waste."
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News