15th April 2008

At a recent event organised by Oldbury power station it was announced that defuelling is to be delayed because of lack of capacity at Sellafield to deal with the spent fuel rods. Currently the most likely protocol for decommissioning will be to remove all non-nuclear buildings and plant then mothball the reactor hall for 80-90 years then undertake final decommissioning to return the site to ‘green field’.Greens have condemned this U-turn by the NDA.

Statement by Philip Booth, a Green party spokesperson on decommissioning:

Greens welcomed the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's (NDA) original call for decommissioning of nuclear reactors within 30 years. It is outrageous if the NDA are now going back on their plans for faster decommissioning.

Waiting would mean very serious problems of the long term safety, security and storage of radioactive waste at Oldbury and other sites. It is fairer and safer to do it sooner than leave the same job for our great grandchildren to solve and pay for when they didn't even benefit from the electricity.

The NDA seems to be in crisis: £300m in the red, frantically selling off any assets including uranium and facing a further 16% increase to the monstrously huge £73bn costs of dealing with Britain's atomic legacy by 2010. In February in an extraordinary move the Environment Agency publicly criticised the NDA for the wrong approach and worryingly criticised the Government for insufficient funds for the clean-up of nuclear sites.

Last week a cross-party group of MPs says NDAs funding is unsustainable. While even the Government advisors are clear that we have no effective solution to the storage of nuclear waste. It is just plain wrong that the Government is now planning more reactors and yet more waste when we haven't even solved the problems of our current waste. There are cheaper and safer alternatives to more nukes and all their problems. It is not too late to take that road.