UK nuclear cleanup to cost $122 billion

[jpak]

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-10-26T093548Z_01_L26539400_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-NUCLEAR-BRITAIN-DC.XML

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, set up in April 2005 to oversee the dismantling of old nuclear power stations, said on Thursday it would cost 65 billion pounds ($122 billion) to clean up civil nuclear sites.

"The latest version of our lifetime plans -- which detail the commercial operations, decommissioning and clean up programmes of our 20 sites -- now show a total cost of 64.8 billion pounds, a net increase of 2.1 billion pounds," it said in a statement.

The NDA said the increase was due to an "improved understanding" of the costs involved in cleaning up the nuclear reprocessing plant Sellafield.

The NDA also said that current plans submitted by contractors had weaknesses that could lead to substantial changes in clean-up costs.

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