Cost of Decommissioning
In USA many utilities estimates now average $325 million per reactor all-up (1998 $).
In France, decommissioning of Brennilis Nuclear Power Plant, a fairly small 70 MW power plant, already cost €480 million (20x the estimate costs) and is still pending after 20 years. Despite the huge investments in securing the dismantlement, radioactive elements such as Plutonium, Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60 leaked out into the surrounding lake.
In the UK, decommissioning of the Windscale Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (WAGR), a 32 MW prototype power plant, cost €117 million.
In Germany, decommissioning of Niederaichbach nuclear power plant, a 100 MW power plant, amounted to more than €143 million.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Decommissioning
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)