The early shutdown of a key Sellafield reprocessing plant could threaten the future of BNFL, writes Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor.
Decades of political lobbying by the Government have failed to achieve a shutdown of the controversial Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant. Now economic forces may eventually win the day.
News that Sellafield's Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) is to close by 2010 represents welcome news to environmentalists and concerned citizens. The news is probably even sweeter to Government officials who have worked for years to find a legal ploy that could be used against Sellafield's owner, BNFL.
Only this summer the UK and the Republic were locked in a legal battle at the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
Both eventually claimed victory, with the British Energy Minister, Mr Stephen Timms, crowing that the tribunal had "comprehensively rejected" the Republic's demands for a curtailment of operations at Sellafield. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, countered that he had won significant concessions in gaining the right to information on nuclear safety.
Yet the plant stood, and reprocessing and nuclear-fuel manufacture continued.
The outcome was reminiscent of the skirmishing that has gone on since the early 1980s, with each new legal avenue of attack thrown up by the Republic rebuffed by the courts, by planning hearings and international conventions.
This may now change utterly with the news, uncovered by the Guardian, that the Thorp plant is to close sooner than expected.
Thorp has long been considered by BNFL as the cash cow that could help keep the company in profits.
Take away this cash cow and add the costs to be faced with the requirement that BNFL safely dismantle and sanitise the huge plant and it represents a financial blow that may prove fatal.
Years of Irish Government lobbying against Thorp didn't prevent the plant from beginning full reprocessing in 1994. In 1997 BNFL reported that it was fast approaching its reprocessing target of 900 tonnes of spent fuel a year.
At that stage, the financial picture looked bright. BNFL claimed in 1997 to have 15 years of advance orders from nuclear power companies valued at €17,000 million.
BNFL expected to make at least €714 million as a result of these transactions in its first 10 years of operation; this, it said, even after accounting for all decommissioning and capital costs.
Even as BNFL began the scale-up of Thorp, market winds were turning cold on the project. The conditions that made it look so attractive before the protracted planning and construction hurdles had finally been cleared had evaporated.
Uranium prices fell, making it cheaper to mine it rather than reprocess it.
The high reprocessing capacities meant Sellafield couldn't keep up with the resultant waste, particularly the very radioactive high-level liquid wastes. Instead of rushing into full production it has languished at much lower levels, currently running only at about 50 per cent. All of these issues combined to make the plant unviable.
Public opinion and the Government's continual lobbying also had their part to play in the eventual demise of Thorp.
BNFL was harried every step of the way, particularly by environmental groups and the Louth residents who are pursuing their case for damages against the company.
Clearly reprocessing is not going to end in 2010, and Sellafield is likely to continue to represent an object of fear and loathing for the Government and the public.
It is effectively bankrupt, with liabilities of €58,571 million, but much of this represents the costly legacy of the UK's nuclear bomb and energy programmes.
With these diverted into a holding company, BNFL could be reborn as a nuclear clean-up company, abandoning the reprocessing it has for decades promoted as the ultimate commercial justification for the company's activities.