By Professor John Robertson
In the Guardian today:
The cost of cleaning up Sellafield is expected to spiral to £136bn and Europe’s biggest nuclear waste dump cannot show how it offers taxpayers value for money, the public spending watchdog has said.
Projects to fix buildings containing hazardous and radioactive material at the state-owned site on the Cumbrian coast are running years late and over budget. Sellafield’s spending is so vast – with costs of more than £2.7bn a year – that it is causing tension with the Treasury, the report from the National Audit Office (NAO) suggests. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/23/sellafield-cleanup-cost-136bn-national-audit-office
Why must this be a high priority for the UK Labour Government?
Two recent reports in the National (links below), by Ayr MP Allan Dorans, have exposed levels of radioactivity in seafood, other wildlife and in river estuary sediment, from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, described recently in the Guardian as ‘Europe’s most toxic nuclear site‘. These were far above levels considered safe by the UK after the Chernobyl power station leaks in the Ukraine or the by the EU after the Fukushima power station leaks in Japan.
Allan Dorans in his constituency. Pic: Gordon Terris/Newsquest
The reports did not, however, consider the level of cancer incidence in Scotland compared with other parts of the world. First from Public Health Scotland in 2023:
Cancer incidence in Scotland, age-adjusted rates and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of expected rates,* 2010-2021
The rate, or risk, of new cancers also increased to 644 per 100,000 (an increase of 3.1% compared with 2019) and was higher than expected from the long-term trend.
Imagine these were drug cases. Would our media want to know how they compare with the rest of the world? Just a bit. ‘Drug capital of Europe!!‘
Note: Cancer cases rather than cancer deaths are a better measure of the risk from pollution of the environment. Scotland’s superior NHS is, no doubt, compensating for what follows.
From the World Health Organisation in 2022:
The average level of cancer cases in Europe is only 280 per 100 000 compared with 640 in Scotland. In North America, it’s 364.7 and in Oceania (Australia, NZ), it’s 409. In Asia and Africa, I feel sure, detection rates are even lower due to ‘third-world’ health provision.
Scotland is clearly the cancer capital of the whole world. Why is that not news?
And England, most of it further way from Sellafield and Trident than most Scots are? From the Gov UK site, the rate is 540 per 100 000, also very high globally but significantly lower than in Scotland at 640.
With the most dangerous radioactive plant in Europe at Sellafield in Cumbria, only miles from the border, with the experimental nuclear facility at Dounreay in Caithness, with UK and for some time, US, nuclear submarines and missiles based only 35-40 miles from Glasgow and sailing along the West of Scotland coastline, and with two major power stations at Hunterston and Torness, both within the densely populated central belt, Scotland has been exposed to large-scale and largely unknown risks for 70 years now.
While no government-funded scientists will ever admit to any link between the contamination and cancer cases, the onus is not on us but on them to prove there is none.
And before you say it – Scots smoke more? No they don’t.
15% of Scots smoke. Fewer than in most European countries. See this:
Links and sources:
https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancer-incidence-in-scotland/cancer-incidence-in-scotland-to-december-2021 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Cancer_statistics#Deaths_from_cancer
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activist
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
You omitted to mention Chapelcross nuclear power station which is near Annan in Dumfries and Galloway. It is a ‘sister’ reactor to Sellafield, which was known originally as Calder Hall. Although it produced electricity for the national grid, its main purpose was to produce weapons grade plutonium.
So, it, too, can be added to the list of nuclear hazards affecting Scotland. The prevailing south westerly wind send aerial emissions over Edinburgh and Fife.
But that was why it was built where it was in a REMOTE place.
Alasdair Macdonald
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“Nuclear power stations such as Chapelcross and Calder Hall were marketed as “cheap, clean energy” producers. In reality, the energy produced was used primarily for nuclear weapons.”………..CND
JB
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Wish more people were aware……..From CND…….https://www.banthebomb.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nuclear-Power-Flyer-2.pdf
JB
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“but Starmer must pay for it to save lives in Scotland”
Well that’s us ducked then is it not.
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With the Labour government in Westminster embracing nuclear energy just as much as the Tories before it – committed to more big nuclear power stations and to ‘small modular reactors’ – it’s instructive, sensible and sobering to read about the legacy of the UK’s past investments in civil nuclear power. There is much in the recent National Audit Office (NAO) report that should – but won’t – change Westminster/Whitehall establishment minds about the merits of another generation of nuclear power installations.
Source National Audit Office (16 October 2024) Decommissioning Sellafield: managing risks from the nuclear legacy – Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/decommissioning-sellafield-managing-risks-from-the-nuclear-legacy.pdf )
In the words of the NAO on Sellafield: ‘.. the NDA expects full site remediation will take until 2125.’ So 100 years!
Sellafield spend in 2023-24 = £2.7 billion. Delay retrieving all waste from four of Sellafield’s oldest storage facilities, compared with the position when the NAO reported in 2018 = 13 years. And from Para 3.16 of the NAO report: ‘Sellafield spends the majority of its current funding on meeting legal obligations and reducing the highest hazards …….. It spends relatively little on decommissioning and demolishing buildings: just £107 million in 2023‑24.’ So spending billions just to mark time?
NAO report summary Para 11: ‘There is no overall measurement of progress towards full decommissioning’.
Para 12: Sellafield ‘currently has nine major projects over £100 million in value, which are expected to cost £7.0 billion in total. The four major projects which were in progress in 2018 are now expected to cost £1.15 billion more and be delivered much later than forecast.’
Para 13: ‘Sellafield has to empty waste from ageing facilities which pose an ‘intolerable’ risk, and store it in buildings which meet modern standards. The risk these facilities pose is illustrated by the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo, which is leaking 2,100 litres of contaminated water each day. … (Sellafield and its regulators believe that current leakage rates pose a low risk to workers and the public).’
And more on the latter, from Para 2.16: ‘… MSSS (Magnox Swarf Storage Silo) has been leaking contaminated water into the ground since 2019; the rate is currently estimated at around 2,100 litres per day. Sellafield is unable to fix the leak, meaning it may continue until this part of the silo is emptied in the late 2040s or early 2050s.’
Para 14: ‘Sellafield recognised in late 2023 that it did not have a coherent plan to sustain vital sample analysis capabilities. These scientific tests are essential, for example to enable safe removal and treatment of waste from ageing facilities, and to store plutonium safely. The existing testing facility is over 70 years old and in extremely poor condition, but Sellafield paused work on a project to refurbish another building (which had been expected to replace it) in 2024 (7.5 years after it started, after it had spent around £265 million) due to increasing concerns about the condition of the buildings and the delay it was likely to cause to another major project.’
Para 15: ‘Sellafield still has to address known cyber security issues.‘
Para 16: ‘Increases in Sellafield’s forecast cost of decommissioning demonstrate that it is still identifying new risks and the cost of addressing these. …. the Sellafield provision was £136 billion in March 2024, 18.8% higher than it was in March 2019 (after adjusting for inflation).’
Para 17: ‘Sellafield still faces a great deal of uncertainty about what it needs to do, and by when, but it is making increasing use of new tools to plan and prioritise better. Some of this uncertainty comes from Sellafield’s own lack of data on asset condition: it is not clear how long key assets will need to remain operational for, or whether they are likely to last long enough. Other factors are outside of Sellafield’s control, for example decisions over when and whether a Geological Disposal Facility will be available to store waste from Sellafield permanently. The site for this has not been chosen yet, and the opening date has already moved from 2040 to the 2050s at the earliest.’
Para 1.12: ‘Sellafield has frequently been too optimistic about how performance will improve, and has not taken decisive action to respond to serious issues. Sellafield has also struggled to improve how it handles conventional safety hazards (such as asbestos, fire protection and Legionella) which have recurred in a number of areas, indicating that it is not good at learning lessons on an organisational level.’
Para 3.3: ‘The NDA’s accounts include an estimate of the future cost of decommissioning its sites – the ‘nuclear provision’. The forecast cost of decommissioning Sellafield, £136 billion, makes up 68% of the total NDA provision of £199 billion. This is inherently a highly uncertain estimate – Sellafield has to make assumptions about what the task involves, how it expects to clean up the site and forecast costs a hundred years in the future. The NDA believes the cost of decommissioning Sellafield could range from £116 billion to £253 billion.’ And then there are the costs of decommissioning all the individual nuclear power stations.
Para 3.14: ‘In September 2021, Sellafield rated the condition of 70% of its most important (‘Critical’) assets as either ‘Good’ or ‘Acceptable’ . However, it now believes only 42% are in these condition states.’
Imagine if findings like those above – indeed even any one of the operational findings – had been reported by Audit Scotland for a facility for which the Scottish Government had ultimate responsibility, even for a much less critical/less dangerous one than the Sellafield nuclear site.
It seems as if for most people (voters) Sellafield is out of sight and out of mind as pro-nuclear lobbyists and Westminster governments state that shiny new nuclear power plants are critical to the UK’s green transition – and also that Scotland should take its share of the long term ‘benefits’ by having ones located here.
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This from Scottish CND….”In an election year, a campaign priority was to encourage our members and supporters to vote for candidates who oppose nuclear weapons. Anticipating a November election, we commissioned new art work which highlights the cost of nuclear weapons to the natural world of our planet and our own society. We also conducted a crowd funding campaign to support this work. When a UK election was called in July 2024, we knew that the majority of supportive Scottish MPs would lose their seats. Overnight the number of Scottish MPs who had signed or candidates pledged to sign the *ICAN parliamentary pledge expressing support for the TPNW went from over 40 to 10. It is more important than ever that you contact your MSPs and ensure they know that you want your representatives to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by signing the ICAN parliamentary pledge.”
That would be all the new British Labour in Scotland MP’s being told by Starmer what they can and can’t do!!! Corporate Scumbags!!!
JB
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