By Janet Fenton
Nuclear decommissioning is an expensive and time consuming activity and one which has seen a great deal of procrastination as well as buck passing and invoice dodging, which is not surprising given that no one, so far, has worked out a satisfactory and reliable solution to cleaning up and remediating radioactive sites. Until now, this has applied to decommissioning civil sites while the MoD has had its own share of responsibility when it comes to the decommissioning of nuclear weapons and nuclear powered vessels.
The Ferret investigative journalism team have brought to public and activist attention that it’s time to turn attention once more on Dounreay, the ill-fated nuclear energy plant on the north coast of Scotland. An energetic and well informed public debate is emerging. Scotland and its present government has a ‘no new nuclear’ policy and is opposed to nuclear weapons possession.
Dounreay in Scotland has a long and dismal story of promised free electricity and full employment locally, neither realised, from its inception until eventual decision to decommission. Reactor construction work began in 1957 for the nuclear submarines deployed at Faslane. Radioactive leaks were at the heart of a bitter dispute between UK and Scottish Governments over responsibility for the clean up, but a suggestion to pass the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment decommissioning from the MoD to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is implicating the Scottish and the UK Governments in negotiating this change.
In addition, seven defunct nuclear submarines are at Rosyth, awaiting decommissioning (and a further 15 are at Devonport in Plymouth). Faslane and Coulport, where the UK’s nuclear submarines and the warhead store are sited is also likely to require action on radiation leaks.
20 Billion GBP has been secured from private energy companies to allow the UK Government’s Nuclear Liabilities Fund to be applied to civil nuclear clean ups in Scotland at Hunsterston B and Torness, but a question is now emerging about who should be accountable for military clean up, with an almost done-deal for the Vulcan site at Dounreay, along with the massive costs and responsibilities, should be given over from the MoD to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, despite Vulcan’s history as a former submarine reactor testing centre.
This would release the MoD from paying for the necessary efforts to clean up, but despite strong opposition within their Parliament and from Nuclear Free Local Authorities, Friends of the Earth and local campaigners, it seems that the Scottish Government is supporting this deal. An MoD spokesperson has said: “Transition work is progressing to transfer the Vulcan site from the MoD to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.” The Scottish Government had little to say about how the Vulcan clean-up will be paid for. A paper issued in January, somewhat enigmatically, mentioned that “post-transfer funding options” were “being socialised” within the NDA. For the Scottish Government to take on any responsibility for paying a big bill in relation to a reserved matter, such as defence, might seem to many to be outside their devolved competence. The full story is available from Rob Edwards, writing for the Ferret at MoD under fire over nuclear clean-up in Scotland