business plan nuclear power plant

Cost To Build A Nuclear Power Plant: 2023 Prices & Rates

Producing more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source, nuclear energy is the second-largest provider of low-carbon electricity in the world.

Clean energy comes at a cost, though, especially for investors looking to build a nuclear power plant.

The estimated costs of building a nuclear power plant vary from $14 billion to $30 billion. About one-third of these costs are “indirect”, including the cost of land, licensing, engineering, construction, and other owner costs. Direct costs include the reactor and turbine equipment, as well as all other systems and equipment required to produce energy.

How Much Does It Cost To Build A Nuclear Power Plant?

Nuclear power plants are relatively cheap to run, but they are expensive to build. Delays in project delivery may double the costs in less than five years.

The table below shows a breakdown of costs to build a nuclear power plant*: 

*Costs in the table are calculated based on power plant capital investment cost estimates published by the Department of Energy and considering the reported costs of building new nuclear reactors by the Vogtle power plant in Georgia. Vogtle is the first and only nuclear power plant approved to be built in the US since the 1970s. The estimates above don’t include financial costs, such as interest or return rates on investments and loans. 

Calculating and estimating the costs of building a nuclear power plant can only be done based on limited industry information. 

This type of facility has been widely developed in the past, but the United States stopped licensing new nuclear power plants after the partial meltdown of the reactor core of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. 

After the accident, the government adopted stringent safety standards which caused the construction costs to skyrocket. 

In 2012, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved plans to build the first new nuclear power plant in the States since 1979.

The license allowed Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate two new reactors at its existing nuclear power plant, Vogtle. 

These units were initially estimated to cost $14 billion over a 5-year development and construction plan.

However, delays set back these plans. In May 2022, the plant was not yet fully developed and was estimated to cost its owners a little over $30 billion .

Licensing & Permits 

The first step to building a new nuclear power plant – or adding reactors to an existing one – is getting the necessary licenses and permits. 

All nuclear power plants in the US must be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 

The commission requires a 2-step licensing process that involves obtaining construction permits and an operating license. 

To apply for the construction permits, owners must present an application containing: 

• Preliminary safety analysis 
• Environmental review 
• Financial and antitrust statements 

The operating license can only be obtained after the construction of the plant based on the final design information and the plans for operation that are developed during the construction stage. 

A pre-licensing process includes: 

• Early site permits 
• Standard design certification 
• Combined license authorization (construction and conditional operation of the power plant)
• Other licensing processes, including manufacturing license, duplicate plant license, standard design approval, and site suitability reviews. 

Licensing and permits cost around 5% of the total development costs, or around $700 million to $1.5 billion.

Nuclear power plants may look massive, but they actually have a small land footprint compared to other clean energy production facilities. 

A typical 1,000-MW nuclear facility needs around one square mile of land to operate. Depending on location, the land can cost between $28 million and $60 million, or about 0.2% of the total building costs. 

Before buying or renting land, it is crucial to check if there are any state restrictions in place. 

Currently, 12 states have restrictions on the construction of new nuclear power plants, including Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Maine, Connecticut, Illinois, Rhode Island, Oregon, Vermont, and Hawaii.

• Minnesota and New York ban the construction of new nuclear power plant facilities. 
• California, Illinois, Maine, Oregon, and Connecticut require a high level of waste disposal or reprocessing. 
• New Jersey requires the approval of the plant by the state Commissioner of Environmental Protection. 
• Maine and Massachusetts require voter approval. In addition to the high level of waste disposal, Oregon requires voter approval too. 
• In Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Illinois, new nuclear power plants must also be approved by the state legislature.

Engineering

Engineering is the main “indirect cost” of building a nuclear power plant. About 16.7% of total costs are spent on these services, which translates into $2.34 billion to $5.00 billion.

Engineering goes beyond designing and planning the plant, though. 

There are eight main types of engineers providing services during the construction stage. The following three are the most important: 

• Licensing engineers : Professionals with a nuclear engineering background and responsible for submitting applications and obtaining approvals from the NRC. 
• Design and construction : These engineers are responsible for planning and designing the new nuclear power plant. They are also responsible for bringing modifications to the design to meet NRC requirements, replace unreliable equipment, etc. 
• Operations : Provide supervision, especially during the installation and testing of the reactors. Must have a Senior Operator License issued by NRC. 

Construction

The other main indirect cost is the construction of the plant. Investors can expect to spend between $1.48 billion and $3.18 billion.

The table below shows a breakdown of nuclear power plant construction costs*: 

*Estimate costs in the table were calculated based on nuclear power plant capital costs breakdowns provided by the World Nuclear Association . 

As the table shows, about 75% of the total construction costs are spent on site development, nuclear and conventional island installation, and construction materials. 

Onsite labor takes up the remaining 25% share. This is more expensive than labor costs in civil work, but the higher costs are explained by the labor expertise. 

Reactor Equipment 

The centerpiece of a nuclear power plant is the nuclear reactor . Its role is to create a controlled nuclear fission which in turn creates steam that is then transformed into energy. 

Not only are reactors complicated structures, but they use radioactive fuel, such as uranium. Thus, they must be engineered to perfection to ensure safety during operation and prevent radiation leaks. 

This is why reactors are the most expensive type of equipment to cover when building a nuclear power plant. Their cost can vary from $2.93 billion to $6.27 billion. 

Turbine Equipment

Turbines are the second-most important pieces in a nuclear power plant. The steam generated by the nuclear reactor through fission is transferred into the turbines. 

As it moves through the turbine, it moves its blade. This rotating motion drives the generators connected to the turbines and produces electricity . 

Turbines are not as expensive as nuclear reactors, but their cost isn’t that far behind either. Investors typically spend around $2.45 billion to $5.25 billion for turbines alone. 

Structure & Improvements

When building a nuclear power plant, an important share of money goes to architects and engineers.

However, no nuclear power plant is perfect from the start, and the addition of new structures or improvements can happen along the way. 

These can take up over 16% of the budget, and should be accounted for in the initial stage to avoid surprises. 

Considering the current costs of building a nuclear power plant, you should set aside around $2.31 billion to $4.95 billion. 

Electric Equipment 

Nuclear power plants produce electricity, but you need electricity to build them. 

The costs of onsite electric equipment and wiring is one of the cheapest direct costs, cutting off only 6.1% of the total budget. 

Heat Rejection System

Besides turbines and nuclear reactors, all nuclear power plants need a heat rejection system. This is a safety system designed to prevent overheating in the reactor. 

These systems consist of a heat transport loop that transports the heat from the reactor core to a radiator surface which then projects it into space.

A heat sink with a fluid-circulating pump is sometimes included in the design if the radiator transport fluid is different from the cycle working fluid. 

Considering its importance, the heat rejection system is relatively cheap. Its estimated cost varies from $420 million to $900 million, depending on the nuclear plant size and the number of reactors.

Miscellaneous Equipment

Another direct cost is constituted by miscellaneous equipment , an umbrella term used to designate all other systems and equipment types needed during or after the construction. 

This category includes mechanical installations of heavy equipment, welding stations, insulation, fire protection and fire alarm systems, etc. 

All this equipment takes up around 2.1% of the entire budget, which works out from around $294 million to $630 million.

Other Costs

Additional owner costs should also be accounted for when building a nuclear power plant.

These are mostly administrative costs that take up around 6.4% of the total budget. Alongside land, they are the cheapest share of indirect costs.

Is A Nuclear Power Plant Worth The Investment? 

Nuclear energy is relatively cheap to run and is much more environmentally friendly than energy obtained from fossil fuels, such as natural gas. 

Yet, nuclear power plants struggle to survive and are at risk of early closure, while several have already closed due to economic circumstances. 

The main downside of nuclear power plants is that they cannot compete in terms of energy costs with companies producing energy from natural gas. 

In the United States, nuclear power plants are only regulated in some states and deregulated in others. 

Deregulated markets mean that energy producers have to sell the energy on open markets, where distribution companies can choose the most inexpensive option.

The most inexpensive option is electricity obtained from fossil fuel plants, putting nuclear power plants at a risk. 

States with deregulated markets currently include*: 

• New York 
• Connecticut 
• Pennsylvania 
• Delaware 
• Illinois 
• Maine 
• Maryland 
• Washington D.C.
• Massachusetts 
• Michigan 
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey 
• Rhode Island

*The list above only includes states that had a deregulated electricity or electricity and natural gas market at the moment of this writing (October 2022). More states in the US have a deregulated energy market for natural gas only.

How much does a 1-gigawatt nuclear power plant cost to build?

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) the costs of building an advanced nuclear reactor are estimated at around $5,366 for each kW of capacity, or around $5.4 billion for a gigawatt.

However, these estimates consider the overnight construction costs for new plants ordered in 2014. 

Based on the latest news, the current costs, a gigawatt reactor can cost around $11.5 billion. 

What is the nuclear power cost per kWh?

According to the Center for American Progress, nuclear energy averages 25 to 30 ¢/kWh . 

How long does it take to build a nuclear power plant? 

Original construction plans on the only modern nuclear power plant approved in the USA estimated the launch of the new reactors in about five years.

These reactors should have been operational since 2017, but the economic situation and unexpected world crises caused delays on project delivery. 

Thus, it is safe to assume that in normal conditions, it can take between five and ten years to build a nuclear power plant. 

Summary 

Nuclear power plants can provide more environmentally friendly alternatives to electricity producers that use fossil fuel. 

The costs to build a nuclear power plant are estimated between $14 billion and $30 billion. These prices include direct and indirect costs, but exclude finance costs. 

Project delays can have a negative impact on the original estimates, typically doubling the costs in around five years.

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Environment

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Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: Business Plan 2023 to 2026

• Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
• Sellafield Ltd

Nuclear Waste Services

Published 20 April 2023

© Crown copyright 2023

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] .

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-decommissioning-authority-business-plan-2023-to-2026/nuclear-decommissioning-authority-business-plan-2023-to-2026

The NDA is charged, on behalf of Government, with the mission to clean up the UK’s earliest nuclear sites safely, securely and cost effectively. We’re committed to overcoming the challenges of nuclear clean-up and decommissioning, leaving the 17 nuclear sites ready for their next use. We do this work with care for our people, communities and the environment, with safety, as always, our number one priority.

Engaging openly and transparently on our work is important to us. This Business Plan is one of several publications which we create and consult on every year. In line with Energy Act requirements, it sets out the activities that will take place over the next three years to advance our important clean-up and decommissioning work and operate our facilities safely and securely. It shows anticipated funding for each of the businesses for 2023/24 and outline total funding for the following year. We show how the activities are helping to deliver our mission by aligning them to the 47 strategic outcomes identified in our Strategy and Mission Progress Report. We also include key work across our range of critical enablers vital to the delivery of the mission.

How we communicate our strategy and report progress

Engage with our stakeholders, nda strategy.

Twelve week public consultation every five years. Describes how we will deliver our mission, ensuring that the UK’s nuclear legacy sites are decommissioned and cleaned up safely, securely, cost-effectively and in ways that protect people and the environment.

Energy Act requirement. Covers 100+ years.

Published every five years.

Last published April 2021.

Report progress

Mission progress report.

Provides our stakeholders with a clear and concise story of NDA mission progress since 2005, that demonstrates delivery of our strategic themes and outcomes as explained in our Strategy. Covers 100+ years.

Published every year.

NDA Business Plan

Eight week public consultation every year.

Describes key activities across the group over the next three years that align to our strategic outcomes and details the funding available for the next year.

Energy Act requirement. Covers three years (the first year in more detail).

NDA Mid-Year Performance Report

Provides a progress update against Business Plan activities and incorporates the NDA group key targets.

NDA Annual Report and Accounts

Describes achievements and spending. Reports against Business Plan activities and contains an overall progress update against our mission.

A message from our Chief Executive David Peattie

Welcome to the NDA’s Business Plan, setting out our plans to 2026.

A simplified, stronger group

Last year I reported that all parts of the group had become NDA subsidiaries and that Nuclear Transport Solutions and Nuclear Waste Services had been formed. I’m now pleased to report that Dounreay successfully joined with Magnox Limited on 1 April 2023, as we continue to optimise the way that the NDA group works together.

The benefits of this simplified, stronger group are already clear. This plan highlights areas where our new operating model is making a difference, including the development of group-wide strategies on topics such as sustainability, innovation, asset management and digital. We’ve also agreed an operating framework that confirms the responsibilities held by all parts of the group and how we’ll work together to deliver best value for taxpayers.

I am acutely aware of the economic challenges facing the country and continue to welcome Government’s support for our nationally important work, mindful that there is a very clear need for us to spend money wisely and provide maximum value for the UK.

Progressing our mission

We organise our work into five themes and 47 strategic outcomes, providing a clear view of progress towards our mission. Many outcomes are long-term, delivered over many years. As a result, it’s rewarding to see some major milestones completed in the last year.

The Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield closed in July 2022 after 58 years, having handled around 55,000 tonnes of spent fuel during its lifetime. This enables the site to fully focus on decommissioning, with the recent start of waste retrievals from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo a sign of that. Around two decades in the planning, it’s a significant moment to see material removed from one of our highest hazard facilities. Retrievals continue to be a focus for Sellafield, along with receiving and dismantling fuel from EDF Energy’s advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs).

Waste management is important across the estate, including at Magnox where a modular encapsulation plant recently went into service at Berkeley, helping to make intermediate level waste safe and generate learning that will shape plans at other sites. High hazard reduction also continues at Dounreay, in areas such as the Dounreay Fast Reactor and Prototype Fast Reactor, while the team develops an updated lifetime plan following its move to be an NDA subsidiary.

The work by Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) to find a suitable site and willing community for a geological disposal facility (GDF) has now seen four Community Partnerships established so far. In those areas, geophysical investigations have been undertaken in an area off the Cumbrian coast, as well as acquisition of existing geological information for the coastal part of Lincolnshire and to the north of the Cumbria coast. This will aid site specific engineering feasibility and safety assessments, providing us and communities with a better understanding of what hosting a GDF would mean for them.

NWS also manages an Integrated Waste Management Programme on behalf of the wider group. A five-year delivery plan has been developed, with innovative treatment, packaging and disposal solutions being considered that could lead to more sustainable outcomes.

Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) is taking that learning and creating an Integrated Transport Management Programme, ensuring the NDA group’s transport requirements are joined up. It’s also progressing important work on the global stage, transporting mixed oxide (MOX) fuel from France to Japan and delivering vitrified high level waste and conditioned intermediate level waste to international customers.

Of course it’s not just what we do, but how we do it that is important and sustainability is now a critical enabler of our mission. Pioneering and innovative steps are being taken across our estate as we maintain our commitment to become carbon net zero by 2050, and 2045 in Scotland, with carbon management plans expected to be implemented in each part of the group during the next three years.

Trusted to do more

Our mission is growing, with preparations underway for EDF Energy to transfer seven AGR stations to the NDA, for decommissioning by Magnox. This is the most significant increase to the NDA’s portfolio since our creation, with each site moving across when defueling is complete. Strategies are being aligned and assumptions agreed before Hunterston B is expected to become the first site to transfer.

We’re also working with the Ministry of Defence to consider the potential for the NDA group to decommission its Vulcan site which sits next to Dounreay in Caithness. In addition, the UK Government has asked us to support its Energy Security Strategy and we recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Cwmni Egino. This will see us share information and expertise on the characteristics of land around our Trawsfynydd site to support the development of a new small-scale nuclear project, subject to planning.

While exploring and progressing these opportunities, our core mission remains unchanged.

Attracting and retaining skills to deliver our mission

With a complex range of skills needed to deliver this crucial and growing mission, our ambition to create great places to work has never been more important. This is particularly true as we face a so-called ‘war for talent’.

I’m pleased that our Leadership Academy and other development activities, such as a bespoke women’s development programme, are exceling. Attracting new people to the industry is also important and we’re set to launch a new NDA group graduate scheme that will see us do more to develop professional pathways in a number of areas, helping us to meet our requirements and importantly offering a fantastic way for graduates to start a career.

Working with stakeholders

An important part of my role is to engage with stakeholders and representatives of the communities in which we operate. This year has seen us get back together in person after many pandemic-related delays, welcoming hundreds of companies to our supply chain event and around 200 community representatives to our stakeholder summit in Edinburgh. These events were truly valuable, listening to views and understanding different perspectives.

In Edinburgh we signed an agreement to create a non-governmental organisation, or NGO, forum. The first meeting has taken place, providing an important channel for dialogue about our future work.

We’ve also recently completed a stakeholder survey, with 829 individuals taking the time to provide us with detailed feedback on our progress, transparency and leadership. I’m happy to say the results are extremely encouraging, with community stakeholders underlining their positive perceptions of the NDA group, the importance of our strong relationships, and the robust platforms for dialogue and engagement.

This Business Plan sets out a challenging programme of work, reducing hazards while contributing to a globally significant sustainability agenda, developing our people and supporting our communities. I remain proud of colleagues across the group who continue to safely progress our nationally important mission and together I’m confident we can deliver our mission, create great places to work and be trusted to do more.

David Peattie CEng HonFNucl

NDA Group Chief Executive Officer

The NDA and our mission

As owners of one of the largest nuclear decommissioning and remediation programmes in Europe, we develop the strategy for how work should be carried out. We also play an important role in supporting Government’s aspiration for the UK to be a leader in the civil nuclear sector within our remit and areas of expertise. Our strategy is continually evolving and is updated every five years. Our fourth iteration was published in March 2021. We strive to deliver best value for the UK taxpayer by focusing on reducing the highest hazards and risks, while ensuring safe, secure, and environmentally responsible operations at our sites. We seek ways to reduce the level of public funding by generating revenue through our commercial activities.

How we’re set up

We’re a non-departmental public body created by the Energy Act 2004 to clean-up and decommission our 17 sites. We’re sponsored and funded by Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) (formerly the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) (BEIS). Our plans for cleaning up the sites are approved by DESNZ and Scottish ministers, who provide a framework for us. We have offices across the UK, in Cumbria, Warrington, Dounreay, Harwell and London and employ just over 380 permanent staff in the NDA centre.

The UK’s nuclear landscape began to take shape in the post-war period and has evolved over many decades. The focus during the Cold War arms race was on producing material for Britain’s nuclear deterrent. When the nation’s priorities shifted, facilities were turned into nuclear power stations, and, from 1956 onwards, the UK’s first nuclear power stations began generating electricity for homes and businesses. Fuel fabrication and reprocessing plants were built from the 1970s to 1990s. Our 17 sites reflect this legacy and include the first fleet of nuclear power stations, research centres, fuel-related facilities, and Sellafield, which has the largest radioactive inventory and the most complex facilities to decommission. Current plans indicate it will take more than 100 years to complete our core mission of nuclear clean-up and waste management. The goal is to achieve the end state at all sites by 2130s, with all land on Scottish sites expected to be de-designated by 2333.

The NDA group

Accomplishing this important work requires the best efforts of the entire NDA group.

Cleaning up and decommissioning the UK’s nuclear legacy is a complex undertaking and relies on the full range of expertise and skills within the NDA group. Over the last few years, important decisions have been taken about how the organisations delivering our mission are managed, with the intention of simplifying structures and creating a stronger NDA group.

In 2021 we took the final steps to move to a group (subsidiary) operating model, away from the previous contractual, parent body organisation approach. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) became an NDA subsidiary in April 2021, followed by Low Level Waste Repository Limited (LLWR) in July. These followed similar changes for Sellafield Limited in 2016 and Magnox Limited in 2019.

Moving to a group model has enabled us to make further improvements and simplify structures. In January 2022 Radioactive Waste Management Limited (RWM) and LLWR came together into one waste organisation, Nuclear Waste Services (NWS). On 1 April 2023 Dounreay successfully joined with Magnox Limited.

The NDA group is now made up of the NDA and its operating companies: Sellafield, Magnox with Dounreay, Nuclear Waste Services and Nuclear Transport Solutions. Our other subsidiaries include Rutherford Indemnity, NDA Archives, NDA Properties and Energus.

With the finalisation of this structure comes the ability to introduce group-wide policy statements in a number of areas.

There are nine policy statements and the NDA and its operating companies will meet the requirements of these through their individual arrangements:

Sustainability

Socio-economics.

Health and safety

Value for money*

Diversity and inclusion*

The scope of the NDA group is set to grow, following arrangements agreed by the Government and EDF Energy for decommissioning Britain’s seven advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) stations.

The AGRs will reach the end of their operational lives over the next 10 years and, as they come offline, their ownership will transfer to the NDA for decommissioning, utilising the expertise of our group and significantly, Magnox and its experience in decommissioning the older Magnox stations.

*Still under development

Deliver our mission together safely, securely and more creatively, transparently and efficiently

Create great places to work and take pride in what we do

Trusted to do more in the UK and globally

Our funding

We are publicly funded through the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Our total planned expenditure is voted upon annually by Parliament in line with the Spending Review.

Funding framework

Government has shown continued support for the NDA mission over recent years with increased grant funding offsetting the decline in commercial revenue. Spending Review 2021 (SR21) set funding for three financial years from 2022/23 to 2024/25. Funding for the final year of this plan (2025/26) has not yet been established and will be set as part of a future Spending Review process.

Commercial income

We maximise revenue from our existing assets and operations to help fund decommissioning and clean-up, in order to reduce the level of public funding needed to meet the scope of our plans and delivery of the NDA mission.

Our commercial operations are primarily spent fuel and nuclear materials management with additional opportunities identified in providing transportation services.

We will pursue all commercial opportunities using our existing assets, operations and people where they do not materially impact on our core mission or increase our liabilities.

Prioritisation and allocation of funding

Within affordability constraints, we will seek to maintain progress and maximise value for money through the effective implementation of our strategy. This means focusing on reducing our highest hazards and risks, whilst ensuring that safe, secure and environmentally responsible site operations are maintained.

Planned income and expenditure in 2023/24

This Business Plan sets out our anticipated income and expenditure for 2023/24. High inflation has placed significant cost pressure on many areas of our spend, but should also result in an expected increase in our income.

Our total planned expenditure for 2023/24 is £4.133 billion, of which £2.963 billion will be funded by UK Government and £1.170 billion from internally generated revenue.

Planned expenditure on site programmes will be £3.948 billion, while non-site expenditure is expected to be £0.185 billion.

This non-site expenditure includes skills development, socio-economic, research and development, insurance and pension costs, implementing geological disposal and the NDA operating costs.

£4.133bn total planned expenditure 2023/24

£2.963bn funded by UK Government

£3.948bn planned site expenditure

£0.185bn planned non-site expenditure

Numbers may not cast due to rounding

Final Annual Site Funding Limits issued in March 2023 may be adjusted to reflect efficiency, performance and portfolio pressures.

The NDA reserves the right to reallocate funding to meet prioritised programme needs.

*2022/23 figures differ from that disclosed in last year’s plan as some waste-related expenditure previously shown in non-site expenditure is now shown under Nuclear Waste Services

Summary of NDA funding 2023/24 onward

2023/24 breakdown of non-site expenditure

*figure differs from that shown in last year’s plan due to a reclassification of costs to ‘Other central spend’

** figure differs from that shown in last year’s plan due to i) a reclassification of costs from ‘NDA operating costs’ and

ii) a reclassification of certain waste-related costs now shown under Nuclear Waste Services

2023/24 breakdown of planned income by category

Current plans indicate it will take 100+ years to complete our core mission of nuclear clean-up and waste management

Our strategic approach and themes

We use five strategic themes to describe all the activities needed to deliver the NDA’s mission.

The first four strategic themes, Spent Fuels, Nuclear Materials, Integrated Waste Management and Site Decommissioning and Remediation relate directly to our clean-up and decommissioning work and are known as driving themes.

The fifth theme describes the important activities needed to support the delivery of our mission and is known as Critical Enablers. The diagram below demonstrates how they interplay.

Currently, the most urgent task is dealing with our sites’ highest-hazard materials, spent fuel, nuclear materials and highly-radioactive wastes. Once the inventory has been made safe, the redundant nuclear facilities can be dismantled and demolished.

Our five themes

Spent fuels.

Our strategy defines our approach to managing the diverse range of spent fuels for which we are responsible, which are divided into Magnox, Oxide and Exotic. Once spent fuel is removed from a reactor, it is stored in a pond or dry store until it can be dispatched to Sellafield. For more information on the types of spent fuels we manage, see our Strategy document.

The NDA’s strategy has been to bring the reprocessing programme to an end. The THORP reprocessing plant and the Magnox reprocessing plant have now closed. All remaining spent fuel will be safely stored until a permanent solution for disposal is available. The strategy for all remaining spent fuels is to place them in an interim store pending a future decision on whether to classify them as waste for disposal in a GDF. For planning purposes, we assume that the remaining spent fuels will be disposed of in a geological disposal facility (GDF).

Our spent fuel work is separated into fifteen strategic outcomes that we must deliver.

Nuclear Materials

Our strategy defines our approach to dealing with the inventory of uranics and plutonium currently stored on some of our sites. These nuclear materials are by-products from different phases of the fuel cycle, either manufacturing or reprocessing. All nuclear materials must be managed safely and securely, by either converting them into new fuel or immobilising and storing them until a permanent UK disposal facility is available.

All of our plutonium is stored at Sellafield. Our uranium is located at a number of our sites and we are continuing to consolidate it at sites which we consider are best suited to its management. For more information on the types of nuclear materials we manage, see our Strategy document.

Our nuclear materials work is separated into ten strategic outcomes that we must deliver.

Integrated Waste Management

Our strategy considers how we manage all forms of waste arising from operating and decommissioning our sites, including waste retrieved from legacy facilities. Managing the large quantities of radioactive waste from electricity generation, research, the early defence programme and decommissioning is one of the NDA’s biggest challenges. Some of this radioactive waste is in a raw (untreated) form, some has been treated and is being interim stored and, in the case of low level waste, some has already been permanently disposed of.

Retrieving, treating and interim storing the radioactive waste from Sellafield’s four legacy ponds and silo facilities is the NDA’s highest priority. For more information on the types of waste we manage, see our Strategy document.

Our integrated waste management work is separated into fourteen strategic outcomes that we must deliver.

Site Decommissioning and Remediation

Our strategy defines our approach to decommissioning redundant facilities and managing land quality in order that each site can be released for its next planned use.

After the buildings on our sites have been decommissioned, decontaminated and dismantled the land will be cleaned up to allow it to be released for other uses. At that point, its ownership would transfer to the new user of the land.

The NDA is currently assessing alternatives for the final stages of decommissioning that could lead to earlier release of land, continued employment and opportunities to reuse the land.

Our site decommissioning and remediation work is separated into eight strategic outcomes that we must deliver.

Critical Enablers

Some of the work we do, we describe as ‘critical enablers’. Critical enablers cover the important activities needed to support the overall delivery of our mission.

Work featuring in 2023 to 2026

This Business Plan covers the work we will do over the next three years to progress or complete activity across our five strategic themes. You can find the 2023-2026 plans for each of the NDA group operating companies in the next sections.

The next sections present in more detail examples of some of the important work that will either be completed or advanced in the next three years. This near-term activity is mapped against our strategic themes and specifically to the 47 outcomes* that make up our mission. All dates reflect the latest information are subject to change.

*Our 47 outcomes cover all our strategic themes except ‘critical enablers’.

Spent Fuels 2023-2026

Spent magnox fuel.

Spent Oxide Fuel

Spent Exotic Fuel

*Completed subject to final date verification.

Case study - Magnox Reprocessing Plant completes mission

Sellafield’s Magnox Reprocessing Plant ceased operations this year, completing a mission spanning almost six decades.

The plant handled around 55,000 tonnes of spent fuel during its lifetime from the UK’s fleet of 11 Magnox plants as well as reprocessing Magnox fuel from Italy, Japan, and fast breeder fuel from Dounreay. In total, it returned over 15,000 tonnes of uranium back into the fuel cycle. All Magnox reactors have stopped generating and completed final defuelling, with the last load of burnt-up Magnox fuel arriving at Sellafield in 2019.

Fewer than 250 tonnes of fuel is now left for interim storage on the site pending a future decision. For planning purposes, we assume that the remaining spent fuels will be disposed of in a GDF.

Case study - Preparations for AGR stations to transfer

Arrangements have been agreed by the UK Government and EDF Energy for Britain’s seven advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) stations to be decommissioned by the NDA group.

The first site to transfer is likely to be Hunterston B in 2026, with exact timescales to be determined by factors including defueling progress. The final AGR station will likely transfer in the early 2030s.

Preparations are underway, including collaborative work to align decommissioning strategies and plans and the development of key strategic assumptions which will determine the position the first site will be in when it transfers after final defueling is completed. This will act as a template and learning basis for subsequent station transfers.

Nuclear Materials 2023-2026

Case study - Uranium consolidation programme

Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel separates uranium, plutonium and other fission products. Large quantities, approximately 70,000 tonnes of uranium, in various forms, have been generated as a legacy of the UK’s civil nuclear programme. The NDA is responsible for safely managing this inventory of uranic material.

81% of this uranic material has now been consolidated at the Capenhurst site in Cheshire, where it is safely stored pending a decision on future use or disposition.

Approximately 2,900 tonnes of uranium still need to be consolidated:

2,000 tonnes in the form of uranium hexafluoride at Springfields fuel manufacturing site in Lancashire

200 tonnes of uranium produced from reprocessing operations at Sellafield

The remainder is held in various sites across the NDA group

Good progress continues to be made as part of the consolidation programme with over 100 tonnes of uranic material consolidated from across the NDA group to Capenhurst in 2022, including ongoing monitoring and assessment to ensure the material continues to be stored safely.

Integrated Waste Management 2023-2026

Low level waste.

Intermediate Level Waste

High Level Waste

Case study - First waste removed from legacy silo at Sellafield

The first waste has been retrieved from Sellafield’s Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS). It’s part of work to progress the retrieval of high hazard waste from Sellafield’s four legacy ponds and silos and place it in modern facilities at the site.

It represents a significant step in the site’s decommissioning and is a milestone that’s involved around two decades of planning and preparation. This achievement is the result of a significant effort by Sellafield Ltd, the supply chain and key stakeholders such as regulators and Government.

Retrieval of material from the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo was also expected to commence in 2022, but a number of operational challenges mean this is now expected in 2023. It will mean that all four legacy facilities have then commenced the process of retrievals.

Case study - A solution for the future

Delivering a geological disposal facility (GDF) to dispose of higher activity radioactive waste is an important project for the UK. It’s a key focus for the recently formed Nuclear Waste Services, an NDA group company responsible for managing radioactive waste.

Significant progress has been made in finding a willing community this year. Four communities have formed Community Partnerships, three in Cumbria, Mid-Copeland, South-Copeland and Allerdale, and one in Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire.

As well as progressing with community engagement, the first phase of site evaluation has taken place with geophysical investigations off the coast of Cumbria conducted over the summer.

Further geological analysis beyond the Lincolnshire coast will take place next year. This will allow us to develop site specific designs and safety assessments providing local communities with a better understanding of what hosting a GDF would mean for them.

Site Decommissioning and Remediation 2023-2026

Operational and planned.

Decommissioning and demolition

Case study - Establishing site end states

Dounreay, Hunterston A, LLW Repository, Trawsfynydd and Winfrith sites have taken the lead in developing preferred end state assumptions.

We have a responsibility to propose end states for each of our sites - defined as the physical condition to which the site will be taken at the end of the decommissioning process.

It will vary between sites, taking into account factors such as safety, community requirements and environmental sensitivities. Given most end states will not be achieved for decades, the focus is on developing credible options to set direction.

Work at these lead sites is an example of collaboration across the NDA group, alongside wider engagement with regulators and local authorities as well as UK and international good practice forums.

A delivery schedule for the remaining Magnox sites has also been agreed alongside the establishment of an end state enabling programme at Sellafield.

Case study - Trawsfynydd looks to reduce reactor height

Magnox has taken an important step towards its goal of reducing the height of the reactor buildings at Trawsfynydd, which is a major milestone in its programme to decommission the site.

The former nuclear power plant is nestled in Snowdonia National Park, so the aesthetics of the site are considered alongside safe and sustainable decommissioning. The project will reduce the height of the reactors and soften the skyline whilst addressing structural and safety deficiencies associated with the full height structure.

An outline business case was approved this year enabling detailed development to begin. The project will go out to tender next year, providing opportunities for suppliers and the local economy.

Completion of the project will see the volume of the building diminish by 96,000m3, the height reduce by 29 metres and 30,000 tonnes of concrete removed, crushed and reused on the site.

Critical Enablers 2023-2026

Our fifth strategic theme, critical enablers, covers the important activities needed to support the overall delivery of our mission.

Health, safety, environment and wellbeing

Safety is, and always will be, our number one priority. Our focus is to reduce the highest hazards and risks, while ensuring safe, secure and environmentally responsible operations at our sites. It’s our duty to carry out this highly complex mission safely and efficiently while ensuring people and the environment are safeguarded at all times.

We aim to be recognised as a leading environmental remediation organisation. Our environment strategy is maturing and we are working towards a low carbon future and improved environmental outcomes to ensure that our mission outcomes are delivered in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Our strategy for health and wellbeing is to provide a supportive working environment across the NDA group by actively promoting and working with our employees and trade unions (see People) to develop and implement policies and standards with employee health and wellbeing at the forefront.

Our sustainability strategy is also maturing and its emphasis will change over time as our mission progresses. In the short-term, we are making specific efforts to measure our carbon footprint consistently across the NDA group and determine the impact of mission delivery to identify additional opportunities for decarbonisation. In the medium to long-term, ongoing collaboration on our technical grand challenges programme will generate further opportunities to improve the sustainability of our mission delivery.

Our recently published strategy sets out our ambition and focuses on delivering sustainable outcomes through decommissioning practices, with care for the environment, through positive and sustainable socio-economic outcomes for nuclear communities.

Security and resilience

Security is a fundamental element of all civil nuclear operations. We are committed to providing proportionate security and resilience solutions throughout the decommissioning lifecycle.

We recognise the many threats that face the NDA and its supply chain, from cyber attacks, data breaches and Information Technology (IT) system failures to extreme weather conditions, global pandemics and terrorism.

Our strategy brings the NDA operating companies together, taking a group-wide approach to security and resilience in order to improve collaborative working and, where appropriate, implement a shared approach to security arrangements.

Cyber security

Our cyber security strategy is well established, but requires further integration with organisational and operational planning across the whole NDA group. The nature of the threat continues to change and is so prevalent that we have established a group-wide programme (Cyber Security Resilience Programme) to ensure that we become an increasingly harder target for those who seek to do harm to our businesses or our sites. We will ensure that we can collectively protect ourselves, detect cyber incidents early and have mature response and recovery plans to minimise disruption to our core mission of nuclear clean-up and environmental restoration.

Research, development and innovation

Delivering our mission needs many ‘never- done-before’ solutions, which require significant innovative and novel engineering approaches.

Our strategy is to solve the challenging technical problems safely, while aiming to be more effective, efficient, and wherever possible, for less cost to the taxpayer. Research, development and innovation is essential to decommissioning our sites and is delivered in partnership with our supply chain.

Our strategy is established and effective, but our objective has evolved, and will continue to do so, in response to the priorities and challenges across the NDA group and the need for social acceptability of the NDA mission.

Our people are a significant strategic enabler to the delivery of our mission. We strive to create great and diverse places to work so that we can retain our people, maintain our skills base and recruit into our businesses.

Our people topic strategy has three main focus areas: ensuring we have the right people at the right time to deliver the mission; creating the culture in which our people can thrive; and working in partnership with our recognised trade unions and the broader stakeholder community.

Asset management

The NDA group has assets in all stages of the asset management lifecycle and we have a responsibility to secure safe, environmentally considerate and cost-effective asset management across the group.

To ensure our assets achieve this objective, we need a continually improving asset management approach informed by good practice that focuses on value for money mission delivery.

Our strategy continues to address the enduring risk that poor asset performance adversely impacts our mission. We will further develop our strategy for new and existing assets and look to obtain through-life asset management plans that fully integrate new assets into current operations.

Supply chain

A diverse, ethical, innovative, and resilient supply chain is essential to delivering the NDA mission and provides value for money for the UK taxpayer.

With our One NDA way of working, we are now uniquely placed to identify synergies across the group and continue to perform collaborative procurement activities.

We continue to broaden the routes to market and our supply base for the NDA group. A more diverse and sustainable range of suppliers with nuclear experience will provide greater resilience and access to innovative solutions for safe, secure and cost-effective decommissioning.

Information governance

The NDA owns most of the information produced and managed by the NDA group. We aim to support all businesses within the group to comply with statutory and regulatory requirements and realise the value of these assets to enable delivery of the NDA mission. The first step has been achieved by embedding group- wide policies, procedures and guidance together with key centralised infrastructure consisting of an archive facility (Nucleus), a secure collaboration platform and a secure private cloud.

We have a responsibility to support the maintenance of sustainable local economies for communities living near NDA sites and, where possible, contribute to regional economic growth.

The NDA group’s socio-economic strategy is built upon supporting sustainable incomes, resilient economies and thriving communities. Our approach is to work locally. This means working in partnership with local authorities and organisations to better understand local needs.

In supporting our local communities, our primary strategy is to ensure that decisions that direct the delivery of our decommissioning mission support local sustainable and inclusive economic growth and greater social value wherever possible. To ensure our local communities can attract future economic activity, we prioritise support and fund projects which are consistent with our responsibilities to the UK taxpayer. We work in partnership with others to increase the impact of our funding.

Public and stakeholder engagement

Open and transparent engagement is key to building support, confidence and trust among all our stakeholders and we continue to encourage two-way dialogue about strategic direction and when consulting on statutory documents. The open dialogue we have with our stakeholders has encouraged the discussion of difficult and complex issues. We are committed to listening to and integrating a diverse range of views and giving confidence to stakeholders that their views and input will be considered fully as part of this engagement, helping to drive and influence progress in delivering the NDA’s mission. This would not be possible without the support of our stakeholders and the trust we have built with communities and local authorities close to our nuclear sites.

Transport and logistics

The effective delivery of the NDA mission relies on our ability to transport radioactive materials for example, spent fuel, radioactive waste, contaminated items) and bulk materials (e.g. spoil, concrete, raw materials) to, from and between our sites.

In 2021, we brought together the extensive transport and logistics expertise of our subsidiaries, INS and DRS into a single transport division, Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) to support the NDA group and provide value beyond the NDA mission, both in the UK and overseas.

NTS specialises in the operational, commercial, engineering, legal and regulatory expertise that underpin nuclear transport and logistics operations.

International relations

The NDA’s operating environment is inherently international and the risks we manage transcend national boundaries. The materials in our inventory have safety and security considerations on a global scale, and the policy framework in which our strategy is developed is underpinned by international standards and guidance.

The nuclear decommissioning market is growing globally and we will continue to use our experience and relationships to enhance the reputation of the UK nuclear industry, sharing our experience and skills, accessing peer reviews, and conducting joint technology development projects.

To find out more about our critical enablers please refer to our Strategy .

Socio-economic

Investing in our communities.

The NDA has a legal duty set out in the Energy Act to have regard for the impact of our activities upon those communities living near our sites. In addition, we share the same responsibilities all public bodies have under the Public Services (Social Value) Act to secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits from how we undertake our work.

Our approach towards fulfilling these responsibilities can be found in the NDA Local Social and Economic Impact Strategy and this informs our social impact programme.

The NDA Group Social Impact programme invests approximately £15 million per year in those communities where we are progressing our nuclear decommissioning mission, leveraging millions more in the process.

This programme addresses the key, structural economic challenges facing our site communities and is delivered by local social impact teams working in our operating companies and living in those communities where we are working to achieve change.

By building partnerships, leveraging funding, and attracting investment, we are building a lasting social and economic legacy for future generations beyond the completion of our mission.

Case study - Morlais Tidal Energy Project, Ynys Môn

Working with social enterprise Menter Môn, a £900,000 investment from the NDA and Magnox Ltd has leveraged £39 million from the Welsh Government to develop Morlais - a 240 megawatt tidal energy project off Holy Island, creating at least 100 new jobs in the area with the potential for many more.

Menter Môn works across north Wales to deliver a range of regeneration, environmental and cultural projects by working in partnership with Government, the third sector and business.

Still in the development process, the Morlais project supports local businesses and has taken on eight new local apprentices to date. All profits will be reinvested locally through a new community benefit fund and through Menter Môn community projects. As a renewable energy project, providing clean energy, new jobs and economic diversification, the Morlais project is the definition of ‘green growth’.

Case study - iSH - The Industrial Solutions Hub, Cleator Moor

With an investment of over £10 million from the NDA and Sellafield Ltd, the Industrial Solutions Hub (iSH) will unlock millions more funding as part of a £22.5 million Town Deal for Cleator Moor.

iSH is a social enterprise, owned by Copeland Borough Council with the aim of growing and diversifying the economy of West Cumbria away from an over-dependency upon Sellafield. It brings together Sellafield Ltd, its supply chain, academia and research facilities into a business cluster focused on industrial problem solving and practical applications, creating an ecosystem to encourage and foster successful business start-ups and nurture small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development.

The iSH campus aims to create around 700 new job opportunities and is set to generate an additional £40 million per year of revenue for local businesses.

Group strategies

Case study - group-wide digital and innovation strategies launched.

Group-wide digital and innovation strategies have been developed and published this year.

Everyday lives have become increasingly digitally enabled, with the pandemic leading to a significant change in working processes and practices, facilitated by technology.

Our Digital Strategy enables better collaboration, and freeing up time to be spent on delivery at all levels of the organisation.

Meanwhile innovation, alongside research and development, is a critical enabler of the NDA’s Strategy. The Innovation Strategy draws heavily upon collective knowledge, capabilities and information infrastructure.Essential to successful implementation will be enabling a culture where innovation can thrive.

Change extends beyond technology and engineering. It includes our approach to project management, finance, risk, contracting, skills development, assurance, and approvals.

Case study - Innovation takes centre stage

Funding of £528,000 has been announced to support three new Post-Doctoral Research Bursaries at the Universities of Strathclyde, Lancaster and Keele.

They will offer academic researchers the opportunity to develop their career in some of the NDA’s key focus areas of sustainability, the environment, engagement and the management of risk.

This allows us to work with new academic talent to develop the subject matter experts of the future, while also providing fresh thinking regarding the approach to mission delivery.

The last year has also seen a three-year collaborative research agreement signed with the National Decommissioning Centre - the first of its kind between the nuclear and oil and gas decommissioning sectors.

The unique strategic partnership, supporting research with a potential value of up to £900,000, will see us work with researchers from the University of Aberdeen in areas of mutual interest to both the nuclear and oil and gas sectors.

These will include decarbonisation of decommissioning activities, economic impacts, cost benchmarking and remote operations in hazardous environments.

The partnership will harness the capabilities of the NDC’s £1.6 million simulation suite, enabling operational decommissioning scenarios to be trialled in a safe, virtual environment.

Case study - Launching an NDA group graduate programme

The NDA needs the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time to deliver our mission. Ensuring that we have a pipeline of future talent is one of the most important investments we make.

The Nuclear Graduates programme, established by the NDA in 2008, is an award-winning two-year programme playing a key role in attracting diverse, critical skills and talent into the sector.

More than 400 graduates have so far been recruited by the programme, working across the NDA group and wider industry.

We have also recently invested in specialist programmes to meet head on some of the skills challenges we face. These include cyber, radiation protection and finance, audit and risk.

Building on that success, we’ve launched an NDA group graduate scheme, complementing the existing Nuclear Graduates programme and enabling us to bring together professional pathways in a way which not only enables us to meet our skills needs, but offers a unique and rich experience for our successful graduates.

Stakeholder relations

Case study - public and stakeholder engagement as a key enabler.

Around 170 representatives of communities and organisations from across the UK gathered in Edinburgh for the NDA group’s stakeholder summit in September.

It was the first time in three years that stakeholders have gathered in person due to the pandemic. The event covered updates on the decommissioning mission, social value, skills and sustainability.

The event supports the NDA’s objective of building better understanding and support of our mission with stakeholders and the general public, maintaining their support, confidence, and trust through consultation, engagement and outreach.

The summit also saw an agreement signed to create an NDA/non-governmental organisation (NGO) forum underpinning NDA’s commitment to openness and transparency, by encouraging wider scrutiny of activities. Stakeholder feedback received during engagement on NDA’s latest strategy and regular surveys highlighted a request to broaden engagement to include more young people and also pressure groups and NGOs, to allow greater inclusivity of viewpoints, and challenge.

Case study - Digital transformation is the future of asset management

NDA group colleagues have been actively working together to understand how best we can manage the multiple assets we have across the estate.

Our sites have facilities that are 50-70 years old. They are well beyond their design life and, in many cases, destined for deactivation and decommissioning. Other facilities are needed to support the continuing missions, such as the retrieval, treatment and stabilisation of legacy waste and environmental remediation efforts, missions which are expected to last for many years. It’s an extremely complex picture.

The key to managing these assets sustainably, balancing cost, risk and performance is to have reliable, consistent data. Efficient data and information management are essential to allow for better informed decision-making, ultimately leading to greater longevity for assets and improved process performance.

The group has been collaborating on a joint Asset Management Strategy. This sets out an agreed approach by which we can drive towards achieving the best industry standards in asset management.

Teams are looking at how we can move from a situation where there is heavy reliance on manual processes, inconsistent data sets and join up systems that need to talk to each other, standardising diagnostic information from plants and facilities across sites. It’s work that has the potential to achieve multi-million pound efficiency savings.

Beginning with pilot schemes at Dounreay and Sellafield, teams will be working together to achieve the bridging of the gap between IT/OT (Information Technology and Operational Technology) so that the estate will be able to create connected infrastructure.

Magnox is being supported through its Enterprise Asset Management transformation program to bring on board the NDA Asset Information Strategy. This will transform the way work is delivered and asset risk is managed while readying Magnox to integrate the AGR fleet successfully.

Diversity and inclusion

Case study - passports help diversity and inclusion journey.

Our employee-led disability network, known as Enable, has sponsored and championed a group-wide initiative to introduce workplace adjustment passports.

They can be used by all employees and not just those with recognised disabilities, long-term illnesses or caring responsibilities.

The passport records any agreed reasonable adjustments, changes to work schedules, role and responsibilities, working environments, provision of specialist technology and other support and assistance as may be required. If employees move roles within the group, the passport can be taken with them to support conversations about adjustments in the new workplace.

Enable is just one of our employee-led networks, with gender balance, menopause, LGBT+ and race equality groups also helping to connect with colleagues and support our diversity and inclusion journey.

The NDA group has a legal, moral and ethical responsibility to deliver our mission sustainably, with care for our people, communities and the environment. Demonstrating its importance, sustainability was introduced as a critical enabler to our mission in the NDA Strategy, published in 2021.

A resulting Sustainability Strategy has been launched this year with a focus on delivering sustainable outcomes through decommissioning practices, with care for the environment through positive and sustainable socio-economic outcomes for nuclear communities.

The strategy links with other wider considerations including achieving carbon net zero by 2050 in England and Wales and 2045 in Scotland, Government’s Nuclear Sector Deal and Ten Point Plan for Green Industrial Revolution, as well as adopting the United Nations 17 sustainable development goals.

Case study - CO2 shipping improvement

Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) has improved its carbon footprint and reduced fuel usage in its shipping operations as the business works to reduce CO2 output.

With transportation heavily reliant on fuel, shipping operations at NTS have focused on new ways to sail differently, using less fuel and reducing exhaust emissions.

On a voyage earlier this year, NTS put a number of techniques into practice, saving over 14% of fuel and 19% in CO2 emissions in comparison to original estimates. This meant an overall saving of 918 tonnes of CO2.

The fuel-saving techniques included:

Planning more efficient voyages and, where possible, using economical speeds

Strategic weather routing by the ship’s Master using currents, tidal streams and weather windows

Single engine operations used where possible

At the ships’ home port of Barrow, a link to mains power has been installed meaning ships no longer have to run their generators. Solar panels have also been installed to provide electricity to the site.

Case study - Introducing supplier carbon reduction plans

Dounreay now requests that carbon reduction plans are submitted when suppliers bid for work at the site through Contracts Finder. This is encouraging companies to think about how they help the UK to be net carbon zero by 2050. Around 60% of companies bidding for work since the request was introduced have submitted plans, while a quarter don’t have plans, they have alternative polices in place and the remaining companies don’t yet have any arrangements in place.

Case study - Restoring a local environment in Snowdonia

When trees in a conifer plantation near Magnox’s Trawsfynydd site were damaged in recent storms, the NDA and Magnox looked for a sustainable solution. The existing conifers, planted several decades ago, are not native to the area.

So, the decision was taken to replace the damaged plantation with native deciduous trees in keeping with the natural vegetation of this part of Wales. This means that the local environment is protected, providing a more appropriate habitat for local wildlife and giving the local community a more natural and sensitive landscape.

The replanting scheme is just one small part of a programme to understand and improve the local environments across the NDA group – some 4,500 hectares of land in all.

In this part of Snowdonia, these activities are already having an effect. Having seen what the NDA has been doing, a neighbouring farmer is in the process of planting native trees on three hectares of his own land.

NDA group key activities

All activities and dates shown in the subsequent pages represent the latest emerging information and are subject to change.

Where we expect an activity to complete during the Business Plan period, this is clearly stated. All other activities will continue into the following year.

Continue preparations for the transfer of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) stations to the NDA group for decommissioning

Continue to embed our Sustainability Strategy to support the NDA’s carbon net zero commitment

Continue to support the maintenance of sustainable local economies for communities living near NDA sites and contribute to regional economic growth where possible

Continue to work with group businesses to explore alternative disposal options for Higher Activity Waste

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £38 million

Sellafield Limited

Sellafield Limited is an NDA subsidiary, responsible for delivering the NDA mission, through operating and decommissioning Europe’s largest and most complex nuclear site. This includes cleaning up nuclear facilities and safeguarding nuclear fuel, materials, and waste.

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £2,800 million

Site in cumbria.

276 hectares

Hectares dedesignated

All 276 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

The portfolio of work is balanced around the following priorities:

Safeguarding and keeping secure special nuclear material

Prioritising the reduction of intolerable risk in high hazard areas

Support the nation’s civil nuclear programme by:

The safe management and storage of Advance Gas cooled Reactor (AGR) fuel

Facilitating the effective defueling of the AGR reactors

Ongoing safe storage of Magnox remnant fuel

Ensuring the infrastructure is resilient

Progressing risk and hazard reduction in other site areas

Supporting NDA group material consolidation

Continue to receive and dismantle AGR spent fuel from EDF

Continued and sustained retrievals from Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS)

Continue to retrieve materials from the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP)

Implement a revised strategy for Magnox remnant fuel

Site progress (achieved and expected)

All buildings decommissioned - TBD

All land remediated - 2125

All land dedesignated - 2125

TBD is shown when the date for completing the strategic outcome is not sufficiently clear for a specific date to be given at this time.

Magnox Limited

Magnox is an NDA subsidiary, responsible for 12 nuclear sites across the UK: Berkeley, Bradwell, Chapelcross, Dungeness A, Harwell, Hinkley Point A, Hunterston A, Oldbury, Sizewell A, Trawsfynydd, Winfrith and Wylfa. Magnox also generates electricity at the Maentwrog hydroelectric plant.

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £530 million

A change in decommissioning strategy to Site Specific Strategies (SSS) is being developed which takes into account all contributing factors for that site as well as the strategic and funding pressures on the Magnox Portfolio. The Rolling Programme of Decommissioning (RPD) strategy, which approaches decommissioning in a phased way, aims to reduce the overall cost, duration and uncertainty of the Magnox mission, enabling further beneficial re-use of some of our land for other purposes.

The RPD is the basis for the NDA Strategy for Magnox. This will maximise the opportunity for sharing any lessons learned, developing and implementing new innovative technologies, and strengthening wider capability. The programme will collectively be geared towards reducing risk, reducing lifetime costs, and growing skills and knowledge to deliver benefits both nationally and to local communities. The site-specific decommissioning and end state strategies will be continually reviewed and optimised using the learning obtained from across the estate and other influencing factors such as Government policy and funding.

We will support economic growth and job creation by continuing to drive progress against a short-term plan with clear milestones. Each site will also have long-term options identified and decision points on both the decommissioning strategy and the end state. This will allow us to consider opportunities for more innovative approaches, based on the technology and external factors of the time, and provide a basis for ongoing engagement and consultation on our strategies for site decommissioning. In order to recognise the uncertainties in the long term, we have chosen to set out approximate dates that our best estimates of the earliest available options encompass rather than setting out specific dates for our milestones. The current best estimates for end state dates have been included in the 2023-2026 NDA Business Plan and reflect the work done to date on near-term plans and medium-term plans. These estimates are subject to change as we develop our plans and take account of contributing factors including HMG priorities, funding and approvals.

For example, further changes, as we develop our RPD plans, are liable to arise as we seek to integrate and optimise the Magnox plans with those of the AGRs and indeed any other future missions which Magnox may be asked to support in due course.

Key activities

Site in Gloucestershire: 27 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 11 hectares - 16 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Free from Spent Fuel - Achieved

Free from Nuclear Materials - Achieved

All Radioactive Waste Disposed - TBD

All land in End State - all planned physical work complete - c.2060s*

*This is our best estimate of the earliest date to achieve milestones but is based on a number of dependences, assumptions, risks and exclusions and is subject to site specific strategy development and approval.

Bradwell (in care and maintenance)

Site in Essex: 20 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 20 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

All land in End State - all planned physical work complete - c.2080s*

Chapelcross

Site in Dumfries and Galloway: 96 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 96 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Dungeness A

Site in Kent: 20 hectares

All land in End State - all planned physical work complete - c.2050s*

Site in Oxfordshire: 107 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 23 hectares - 84 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Free from Nuclear Materials - 2025

Hinkley Point A

Site in Somerset: 19 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 19 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Hunterston A

Site in Ayrshire: 15 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 15 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Site in South Gloucestershire: 47 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 32 hectares - 15 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Site in East Suffolk: 14 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 14 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

All land in End State - all planned physical work complete - c.2070s*

Trawsfynydd (our lead and learn site for rolling decommissioning)

Site in North Wales: 15 hectares

Site in Dorset: 81 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 10 hectares - 71 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

All land in End State - all planned physical work complete - c.2036*

Site in Anglesey: 21 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 21 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

On 1 April 2023, Dounreay became a division of Magnox Limited. It is responsible for decommissioning and cleaning up the Dounreay site in the north of Scotland. It also operates a Low Level Waste (LLW) disposal facility to deal with waste from the site.

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £221 million

Site in Northern Scotland: 60 hectares (plus 12 hectares designated for LLW facility) in Caithness.

Hectares Dedesignated: 0 hectares - 60 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence, the 12 for the LLW facility are designated but not licensed.

The activities below are extracted from the current site Lifetime Plan and are subject to change. A revised Lifetime Plan is in development following the transition to an NDA subsidiary.

All fuel in long-term storage or shipped off site.

Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) dismantled

Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) dismantled

Shaft and silo encapsulation complete

Site clearance and environmental restoration phase 3 complete

Interim end state achieved

Defueled - TBD

Free from Nuclear Materials - TBD

All Buildings Decommissioned or Relicensed - TBD

All Land Demonstrated as Suitable for Reuse - TBD

All Land Dedesignated or Reused – TBD

Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) launched in January 2022. This new organisation brings together the long-established expertise of site operator Low Level Waste Repository Limited (LLWR), Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) developer Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Limited and the NDA’s Integrated Waste Management Programme. The NWS vision is to make nuclear waste permanently safe as soon as possible. It is focused on managing UK nuclear waste safely, innovatively, and sustainably, while driving value for money.

NWS is not a legal entity but provides strategic oversight over the operation and development of these businesses through a management board governance structure. The legal entities of LLWR and RWM will endure, although the intention is to move to a single legal entity operating under the NWS brand at an appropriate point in the future.

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £240 million

Site in Cumbria: 100 hectares

Hectares Dedesignated: 0 hectares - All 100 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

2023 - Repository Development Programme (RDP) Tranche 1 design complete (*)

2024 - RDP commence main construction (*)

2026 - Environmental Safety Case (ESC) submitted to the Environment Agency (*)

2026 - Decision to Government on communities to progress to deep borehole investigation and increased community investment

2026-2027 - RDP Vault 8 closure (*)

2029 - Start site characterisation deep borehole investigations

2029 - RDP final capping of Vault 8 (*)

All Land Dedesignated or Reused - 2135 (*)

(*) indicates activities related to specific work at NWS Low Level Waste Repository site

Nuclear Transport Solutions

Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) provides the NDA group with specialist transport and logistics capabilities.

Delivering our mission relies on being able to transport radioactive materials and other freight safely and sustainably. NTS supports this by transporting spent nuclear fuel from UK power stations to Sellafield, returning reprocessed products to customers overseas, and providing packaging and licensing solutions to the NDA group.

It also generates revenue through commercial opportunities in the UK and overseas – offsetting the cost of delivering decommissioning and clean-up work at the UK’s oldest nuclear sites.

NTS operates Direct Rail Services (DRS) and Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL) to deliver rail and shipping services for customers, building on decades of experience of providing safe, secure and reliable transport solutions.

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £111 million

NDA Archives Limited

NDA Archives is an NDA subsidiary, responsible for Nucleus (the Nuclear and Caithness Archives) and related operational activities across the NDA group. The Nucleus facility is currently operated by a commercial partner and provides the centre of excellence for long-term records management, archive services, digital preservation and heritage management.

NDA Properties Limited

NDA Properties Ltd is an NDA subsidiary, holding and managing the majority of the non-nuclear property assets within the NDA group.

Rutherford Indemnity Limited

Rutherford Indemnity Ltd provides insurance cover for the NDA group. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary, managed for the NDA by Marsh Management Services Guernsey Limited, and has no direct employees.

Energus is an NDA subsidiary offering conference and events facilities and a range of training, education and business support services geared to providing and enhancing skills within both the local and national nuclear workforce.

Springfields (owned by Westinghouse Electric UK Holdings Limited.)

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £22 million.

Site in Lancashire: 81 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 0 hectares - all 81 hectares remain covered by the nuclear site licence.

Springfields is a nuclear fuel manufacturing site and is located near Preston in Lancashire. The site is operated by Springfields Fuels Limited (SFL) and is used to manufacture a range of fuel products for UK and international customers, the processing of historic uranic residues and decommissioning of redundant facilities.

From April 2010, the NDA permanently transferred ownership of the company to Westinghouse Electric including the freedom to invest for the future under the terms of a new 150-year lease. SFL is contracted to provide decommissioning and clean-up services to the NDA to address historic liabilities.

Capenhurst (owned by URENCO)

Planned expenditure for 2023/24 - £24 million.

Site in Cheshire: 30 hectares

Hectares dedesignated: 17 hectares have been dedesignated. Modification of Designating Direction signed by the Minister in May 2010 and July 2012. Remaining 13 hectares are covered by the nuclear site licence.

The NDA Capenhurst site is located near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.

In 2012, the site was transferred to URENCO, owners of the adjacent licensed site, and was amalgamated into a single nuclear licensed site. As part of this transfer, URENCO established Urenco Nuclear Stewardship (UNS), formerly known as Capenhurst Nuclear Services, to provide responsible management of uranic materials and carry out remediation work on behalf of the NDA.

UNS manages a large proportion of the NDA’s uranic inventory and also provides broader decommissioning and demolition works for redundant facilities, in order to reduce liability and optimise space utilisation on site.

Delivery of our mission up to 2040 - Spent Fuels and Nuclear Materials

Delivery of our mission up to 2040 - Integrated Waste Management and Site Decommissioning and Remediation

Useful links

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority www.gov.uk/nda

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-energy-security-and-net-zero

Sellafield Ltd www.gov.uk/government/organisations/sellafield-ltd

Magnox Ltd www.gov.uk/government/organisations/magnox-ltd

Dounreay Ltd www.gov.uk/government/organisations/dounreay

Nuclear Waste Services www.gov.uk/government/organisations/nuclear-waste-services

Nuclear Transport Solutions www.nucleartransportsolutions.com

URENCO Ltd www.urenco.com

Springfields Fuels Ltd www.westinghousenuclear.com

Useful documentation

The NDA group Sustainability Strategy 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk/nda)

NDA Strategy - March 2021 (www.gov.uk/nda)

NDA Business Plan 2021 to 2024 and NDA Business Plan 2022 to 2025 (www.gov.uk/nda)

NDA Mid-Year Performance Report 2020 to 2021 (www.gov.uk/nda)

NDA Research and Development 5 year plan: 2019 to 2024 (www.gov.uk/nda)

Nuclear Decommissioning: attracting and retaining skills (brochure) Nov 2016 (www.gov.uk/nda )

NDA Corporate Centre: gender pay gap report, 2021 (www.gov.uk/nda)

Register of Director’s Interests and associated procedure (www.gov.uk/nda)

NDA: working with our communities (www.gov.uk/nda)

AGR Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor

BEIS Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

CAPEX Capital expenditure

DESNZ Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

DFR Dounreay Fast Reactor

DRS Direct Rail Services Ltd

EDFE EDF Energy

ED&I Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

FGMSP First Generation Magnox Storage Pond

FHP Fuel Handling Plant

GDF Geological Disposal Facility

HAL Highly Active Liquor

ILW Intermediate Level Waste

INS International Nuclear Services Ltd

LETP Liquid Effluent Treatment Plant

LLW Low Level Waste

LLWR Low Level Waste Repository

MOD Ministry of Defence

MOX Mixed Oxide Fuel

MSSS Magnox Swarf Storage Silo

NDA Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

NDAPL NDA Properties Ltd

NTS Nuclear Transport Solutions

NWS Nuclear Waste Services

POCO Post Operational Clean Out

PFR Prototype Fast Reactor

PFSP Pile Fuel Storage Pond

PPP Programme and Project Partners

RD&I Research, Development and Innovation

RWM Radioactive Waste Management Ltd

SGHWR Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor

SLC Site Licence Company

SME Small and Medium Enterprise

THORP Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plan

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Building nuclear power plants

Why do costs exceed projections.

An MIT team has revealed why, in the field of nuclear power, experience with a given technology doesn’t always lower costs. When it comes to building a nuclear power plant in the United States—even of a well-known design—the total bill is often three times as high as expected. Using a new analytical approach, the researchers delved into the cost overrun from non-hardware-related activities such as engineering services and labor supervision. Tightening safety regulations were responsible for some of the cost increase, but declining labor productivity also played a significant role. Analyses of possible cost-reduction strategies show potential gains from technology development to reduce materials use and to automate some construction tasks. Cost overruns continue to be left out of nuclear industry projections and overlooked in the design process in the United States, but the researchers’ approach could help solve those problems. Their new tool should prove valuable to design engineers, developers, and investors in any field with demanding and changeable regulatory and site-specific requirements.

Nuclear power is frequently cited as a critical component in the portfolio of technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But rising construction costs and project delays have hampered efforts to expand nuclear capacity in the United States since the 1970s. At plants begun after 1970, the average cost of construction has typically been far higher than the initial cost estimate.

Nevertheless, the nuclear industry, government, and research agencies continue to forecast cost reductions in nuclear plant construction. A key assumption in such projections is that costs will decline as the industry gains experience with a given reactor design. “It’s often included in models, with huge impacts on the outcomes of projected energy supply mixes,” says Jessika E. Trancik , an associate professor of energy studies in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS).

That expectation is based on an assumption typically expressed in terms of the “learning rate” for a given technology, which represents the percent cost reduction associated with a doubling of cumulative production. Nuclear industry cost-estimating guidelines as well as widely used climate models and global energy scenarios often rely on learning rates that significantly reduce costs as installed nuclear capacity increases. Yet empirical evidence shows that in the case of nuclear plants, learning rates are negative. Costs just keep rising.

To investigate, Trancik and her team—co-first authors Philip Eash-Gates SM ’19 and IDSS postdoc Magdalena M. Klemun PhD ’19; IDSS postdoc Gökşin Kavlak; former IDSS research scientist James McNerney; and TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering Jacopo Buongiorno —began by looking at industry data on the cost of construction (excluding financing costs) over five decades from 107 nuclear plants across the United States. They estimated a negative learning rate consistent with a doubling of construction costs with each doubling of cumulative U.S. capacity.

That result is based on average costs across nuclear plants of all types. One explanation is that the rise in average costs hides trends of decreasing costs in particular reactor designs. So the researchers examined the cost trajectories of four standard plant designs installed in the United States that reached a cumulative built capacity of 8 gigawatts-electric. Their results appear below. They found that construction costs for each of the four designs rose as more plants were built. In fact, the first one built was the least expensive in three of the four cases and was among the least expensive plants in the fourth.

“We’ve confirmed that costs have risen even for plants of the same design class,” says Trancik. “That outcome defies engineering expectations.” She notes that a common view is that more stringent safety regulations have increased the cost of nuclear power plant construction. But is that the full explanation, or are other factors at work as well?

Source of increasing cost

To find out, the researchers examined cost data from 1976 to 1987 in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Economic Data Base. (After 1987 the DOE database was no longer updated.) They looked at the contributions to overall cost increases of 61 “cost accounts” representing individual plant components and the services needed to install them.

They found that the overall trend was an increase in costs. Many accounts contribute to the total cost escalation, so the researchers couldn’t easily identify one source. But they could group the accounts into two categories: direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs are costs of materials and labor needed for physical components such as reactor equipment and control and monitoring systems. Indirect costs are construction support activities such as engineering, administration, and construction supervision. The figure below shows their results.

The researchers concluded that between 1976 and 1987, indirect costs—those external to hardware—caused 72% of the cost increase. “Most aren’t hardware-related but rather are what we call soft costs,” says Trancik. “Examples include rising expenditures on engineering services, on-site job supervision, and temporary construction facilities.”

To determine which aspects of the technology were most responsible for the rise in indirect expenses, they delved further into the DOE dataset and attributed the indirect expenses to the specific plant components that incurred them. The analysis revealed that three components were most influential in causing the indirect cost change: the nuclear steam supply system, the turbine generator, and the containment building. All three also contributed heavily to the direct cost increase.

A case study

For further insight, the researchers undertook a case study focusing on the containment building. This airtight, steel-and-concrete structure forms the outermost layer of a nuclear reactor and is designed to prevent the escape of radioactive materials as well as to protect the plant from aircraft impact, missile attack, and other threats. As such, it is one of the most expensive components and one with significant safety requirements.

Based on historical and recent design drawings, the researchers extended their analysis from the 1976–1987 period to the year 2017. Data on indirect costs aren’t available for 2017, so they focused on the direct cost of the containment building. Their goal was to break down cost changes into underlying engineering choices and productivity trends.

They began by developing a standard cost equation that could calculate the cost of the containment building based on a set of underlying variables—from wall thickness to laborer wages to the prices of materials. To track the effects of labor productivity trends on cost, they included variables representing steel and concrete “deployment rates,” defined as the ratio of material volumes to the amount of labor (in person-hours) required to deploy them during construction.

A cost equation can be used to calculate how a change in one variable will affect overall cost. But when multiple variables are changing at the same time, adding up the individual impacts won’t work because they interact. Trancik and her team therefore turned to a novel methodology they developed in 2018 to examine what caused the cost of solar photovoltaic modules to drop so much in recent decades. Based on their cost equation for the containment building and following their 2018 methodology, they derived a “cost change equation” that can quantify how a change in each variable contributes to the change in overall cost when the variables are all changing at once.

Their results, summarized in the right-hand panel of the figure below, show that the major contributors to the rising cost of the containment building between 1976 and 2017 were changes in the thickness of the structure and in the materials deployment rates. Changes to other plant geometries and to prices of materials brought costs down but not enough to offset those increases.

Percentage contribution of variables to increases in containment building costs These panels summarize types of variables that caused costs to increase between 1976 and 2017. In the first time period (left panel), the major contributor was a drop in the rate at which materials were deployed during construction. In the second period (middle panel), the containment building was redesigned for improved safety during possible emergencies, and the required increase in wall thickness pushed up costs. Overall, from 1976 to 2017 (right panel), the cost of a containment building more than doubled.

As the left and center panels above show, the importance of those mechanisms changed over time. Between 1976 and 1987, the cost increase was caused primarily by declining deployment rates; in other words, productivity dropped. Between 1987 and 2017, the containment building was redesigned for passive cooling, reducing the need for operator intervention during emergencies. The new design required that the steel shell be approximately five times thicker in 2017 than it had been in 1987—a change that caused 80% of the cost increase over the 1976–2017 period.

Overall, the researchers found that the cost of the reactor containment building more than doubled between 1976 and 2017. Most of that cost increase was due to increasing materials use and declining on-site labor productivity—not all of which could be clearly attributed to safety regulations. Labor productivity has been declining in the construction industry at large, but at nuclear plants it has dropped far more rapidly. “Material deployment rates at recent U.S. ‘new builds’ have been up to 13 times lower than those assumed by the industry for cost estimation purposes,” says Trancik. “That disparity between projections and actual experience has contributed significantly to cost overruns.”

Discussion so far has focused on what the researchers call “low-level mechanisms” of cost change—that is, cost change that arises from changes in the variables in their cost model, such as materials deployment rates and containment wall thickness. In many cases, those changes have been driven by “high-level mechanisms” such as human activities, strategies, regulations, and economies of scale.

The researchers identified four high-level mechanisms that could have driven the low-level changes. The first three are “R&D,” which can lead to requirements for significant modifications to the containment building design and construction process; “process interference, safety,” which includes the impacts of on-site safety-related personnel on the construction process; and “worsening despite doing,” which refers to decreases in the performance of construction workers, possibly due to falling morale and other changes. The fourth mechanism— “other”—includes changes that originate outside the nuclear industry, such as wage or commodity price changes. Following their 2018 methodology, the team assigned each low-level cost increase to the high-level mechanism or set of mechanisms that caused it.

The analysis showed that R&D-related activities contributed roughly 30% to cost increases, and on-site procedural changes contributed roughly 70%. Safety-related mechanisms caused about half of the direct cost increase over the 1976 to 2017 period. If all the productivity decline were attributed to safety, then 90% of the overall cost increase could be linked to safety. But historical evidence points to the existence of construction management and worker morale issues that cannot be clearly linked to safety requirements.

Lessons for the future

The researchers next used their models in a prospective study of approaches that might help to reduce nuclear plant construction costs in the future. In particular, they examined whether the variables representing the low-level mechanisms at work in the past could be addressed through innovation. They looked at three scenarios, each of which assumes a set of changes to the variables in the cost model relative to their values in 2017.

In the first scenario, they assume that cost improvement occurs broadly. Specifically, all variables change by 20% in a cost-reducing direction. While they note that such across-the-board changes are meant to represent a hypothetical and not a realistic scenario, the analysis shows that reductions in the use of rebar (the steel bars in reinforced concrete) and in steelworker wages are most influential, together causing 40% of the overall reduction in direct costs.

In the second scenario, they assume that on-site productivity increases due to the adoption of advanced manufacturing and construction management techniques. Scenario 2 reduces costs by 34% relative to estimated 2017 costs, primarily due to increased automation and improved management of construction activities, including automated concrete deployment and optimized rebar delivery. However, costs are still 30% above 1976 costs.

The third scenario focuses on advanced construction materials such as high-strength steel and ultra-high-performance concrete, which have been shown to reduce commodity use and improve on-site workflows. This scenario reduces cost by only 37% relative to 2017 levels, in part due to the high cost of the materials involved. And the cost is still higher than it was in 1976.

Decreases in containment building costs due to four high-level mechanisms under three innovation strategies Scenario 1 assumes a 20% improvement in all variables; Scenario 2 increases on-site material deployment rates by using advanced manufacturing and construction management techniques; and Scenario 3 involves use of advanced, high-strength construction materials. All three strategies would require significant R&D investment, but the importance of the other high-level mechanisms varies. For example, “learning-by-doing” is important in Scenario 2 because assumed improvements such as increased automation will require some on-site optimization of robot operation. In Scenario 3, the use of advanced materials is assumed to require changes in building design and workflows, but those changes can be planned off-site, so are assigned to R&D and “knowledge spillovers.”

To figure out the high-level mechanisms that influenced those outcomes, the researchers again assigned the low-level mechanisms to high-level mechanisms, in this case including “learning-by-doing” as well as “knowledge spillovers,” which accounts for the transfer of external innovations to the nuclear industry. As shown above, the importance of the mechanisms varies from scenario to scenario. But in all three, R&D would have to play a far more significant role in affecting costs than it has in the past.

Analysis of the scenarios suggests that technology development to reduce commodity usage and to automate construction could significantly reduce costs and increase resilience to changes in regulatory requirements and on-site conditions. But the results also demonstrate the challenges in any effort to reduce nuclear plant construction costs. The cost of materials is highly influential, yet it is one of the variables most constrained by safety standards, and—in general—materials-related cost reductions are limited by the large-scale dimensions and labor intensity of nuclear structures.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to be encouraged by the results of the analyses. They help explain the constant cost overruns in nuclear construction projects and also demonstrate new tools that engineers can use to predict how design changes will affect both hardware- and non-hardware-related costs in this and other technologies. In addition, the work has produced new insights into the process of technology development and innovation. “Using our approach, researchers can explore scenarios and new concepts, such as microreactors and small modular reactors,” says Trancik. “And it may help in the engineering design of other technologies with demanding and changeable on-site construction and performance requirements.” Finally, the new technique can help guide R&D investment to target areas that can deliver real-world cost reductions and further the development and deployment of various technologies, including nuclear power and others that can help in the transition to a low-carbon energy future.

This research was supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the MIT Energy Initiative. Philip Eash-Gates SM ’19 is now a senior associate at Synapse Energy Economics. James McNerney is a research associate in the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Further information about this research and the earlier study of photovoltaic technology can be found in:

P. Eash-Gates, M.M. Klemun, G. Kavlak, J. McNerney, J. Buongiorno, and J.E. Trancik. “Sources of cost overrun in nuclear power plant construction call for a new approach to engineering design.” Joule , November 2020. Online: doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2020.10.001

G. Kavlak, J. McNerney, J.E. Trancik. “Evaluating the causes of cost reduction in photovoltaic modules.” Energy Policy , vol. 123, pp. 700–710, 2018. Online: doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.08.015

This article appears in the Autumn 2020 issue of Energy Futures .

Press inquiries: [email protected]

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• How to build a nuclear-power plant

A new crop of developers is challenging the industry leaders

THE Barakah nuclear-power plant under construction in Abu Dhabi will never attract the attention that the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in neighbouring Dubai does, but it is an engineering feat nonetheless. It is using three times as much concrete as the world’s tallest building, and six times the amount of steel. Remarkably, its first reactor may start producing energy in the first half of this year—on schedule and (its South Korean developers insist) on budget. That would be a towering achievement.

In much of the world, building a nuclear-power plant looks like a terrible business prospect. Two recent additions to the world’s nuclear fleet, in Argentina and America, took 33 and 44 years to erect. Of 55 plants under construction, the Global Nuclear Power database reckons almost two-thirds are behind schedule (see chart). The delays lift costs, and make nuclear less competitive with other sources of electricity, such as gas, coal and renewables.

Not one of the two technologies that were supposed to revolutionise the supply of nuclear energy—the European Pressurised Reactor, or EPR, and the AP1000 from America’s Westinghouse—has yet been installed, despite being conceived early this century. In Finland, France and China, all the EPRs under construction are years behind schedule. The main hope for salvaging their reputation—and the nuclear business of EDF, the French utility that owns the technology—is the Hinkley Point C project in Britain, which by now looks a lot like a Hail Mary pass.

Meanwhile, delays with the Westinghouse AP1000 have caused mayhem at Toshiba, its owner. The Japanese firm may announce write-downs in February of up to $6bn on its American nuclear business. As nuclear assets are probably unsellable, it is flogging parts of its core, microchip business instead.

Yet relative upstarts in South Korea and China show that large reactors, such as the four 1,400-megawatt (MW) ones in Abu Dhabi, can be built. Moreover, the business case for a new breed of small reactors below 300MW is improving. This month, Oregon-based NuScale Power became the first American firm to apply for certification of a small modular reactor (SMR) design with America’s nuclear regulators.

“Clearly the momentum seems to be shifting away from traditional suppliers,” says William Magwood, director-general of the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency. Both small and large reactors are required. In places like America and Europe, where electricity demand is growing slowly, there is rising interest in small, flexible ones. In fast-growing markets like China, large nuclear plants make more economic sense.

If the South Koreans succeed with their first foreign nuclear programme in Abu Dhabi, the reason is likely to be consistency. Nuclear accidents such as Three-Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 caused a long hiatus in nuclear construction in America and Europe. But South Korea has invested in nuclear power for four decades, using its own technology since the 1990s, says Lee Jong-ho, an executive at Korea Electric Power (KEPCO), which leads the consortium building Barakah. It does not suffer from the skills shortages that bedevil nuclear construction in the West.

KEPCO always works with the same, familiar suppliers and construction firms hailing from Korea Inc. By contrast, both the EPR and AP1000, first-of-a-kind technologies with inevitable teething problems, have suffered from being contracted out to global engineering firms. Also, South Korea and China both keep nuclear building costs low through repetition and standardisation, says the World Nuclear Association (WNA), an industry group. It estimates that South Korean capital costs have remained fairly stable in the past 20 years, while they have almost tripled in France and America.

The WNA also notes in a report this month a “revival” of interest in SMRs, partly because of rock-bottom sentiment toward large plants. Utilities are finding it tough to pay for big projects (Barakah, for instance costs a whopping $20bn), especially in deregulated power markets where prices have slumped because of an abundance of natural gas and renewable energy. Big investments can sink a firm’s credit rating and jack up its cost of capital.

It is less onerous to pay for an SMR, which means that even though they produce less energy, they can be cost-competitive with larger plants once they are being mass produced, says the WNA. Other advantages are that SMRs will be factory-built, easy to scale up by stacking them together, and quick to install.

America’s regulators expect to reach a decision on NuScale’s application within 40 months. Safety will be the crucial issue; both the reactor and the facilities where it will be fabricated need to pass muster. It uses a well-established pressurised-water technology and claims not to be at risk from the problems that caused the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011; it has no pumps, and no need for external power or water. If approved, the success of the technology will not be known until many have been produced. Yet with the prospect of SMRs and the Abu Dhabi plant soon going into action, long-suffering backers of nuclear power at last have something to pin their hopes on.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Nuclear options”

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You are here, new iaea publication highlights the role of management in nuclear power plant projects.

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Developing and constructing a nuclear power plant involves government bodies, multiple expert and construction teams, a large set of materials and the coordinated work of thousands of people as well as input from a myriad of interdisciplinary groups at all levels. To ensure the successful development and construction of a nuclear project, a strong project management plan must be implemented to verify that the project meets regulations and safety standards and is delivered with high quality, on time and on budget.

Management of Nuclear Power Plant Projects , the latest publication in the IAEA Nuclear Energy Series , provides best practices in this area. The publication, funded through the IAEA Peaceful Uses Initiative , describes how to implement a management framework within a nuclear power plant project, ensuring that required systems are in place to manage project areas and are updated proactively as the project progresses.

“Several IAEA Member States have, and continue to run repeated successful nuclear power projects,” said Pekka Pyy, Senior Expert in Organization and Management Systems at the IAEA. “The management of nuclear projects, especially new builds, is challenging, therefore timely project development is needed to prevent delays and budget overruns. Very often, problems reported during the construction phase have actually originated earlier but only become visible later. It is in all cases possible to run successful nuclear newbuild projects by careful planning, agreed processes and clear roles and interfaces.”

Factors influencing nuclear power projects

The publication highlights numerous external and internal factors which can affect successful project implementation and reception. These include organizational culture and leadership style, the regulatory environment and access to qualified personnel, among others.

“Even if a plant is using a design which has been implemented in the past somewhere else, elements like the local legislation that must be followed, site environment and the materials available in that location may affect how a project progresses,” said Pyy, adding that successful projects require a strong and long-term national commitment to nuclear power.

Enterprise and external environment factors that influcence nuclear projects.

Managing nuclear power projects

While many of the success factors for nuclear power projects are the same as for any megaprojects – such as time, cost, health and safety and environmental protection – in the case of nuclear power, there are also nuclear-specific considerations. These include radiation protection and radioactive waste management, licensing, emergency planning and response, security and safeguards of nuclear material.

Another increasingly important factor in the success of nuclear projects both nationally and globally is communications management – keeping those involved with the project informed of project status and progress and informing governments, the surrounding communities and other stakeholders about the project and its potential impact. The publication highlights forms of public communication such as press releases or newsletters, social media and tours for the public as contributing to a greater understanding of the project and therefore possibly greater acceptance.

The publication also introduces and explains the management activities in five different project phases, all of which must be put into place from the beginning of the project and be integrated throughout its life cycle: identification, initiation, development and definition, execution and closeout as well as lessons learned.

Knowledge sharing

The publication includes best practices from established nuclear power countries and their projects for those countries embarking on their first nuclear power project. These can then be used and adapted to national regulations, standards and values.

“When building a nuclear power plant for the first time, national expertise may not be there, and delays may occur simply due to the inexperience of all involved organizations. In sharing the expertise from established nuclear power countries, others can maximize the chances of success,” said Rod Speedy, Chief Advisor for Project Development at Eskom, South Africa’s state-owned electricity utility. “Nuclear power plant constructions are massive undertakings and the consequences of project failure are great. The new publication aims to address this through comprehensive management guidance for success throughout the lifecycle of a nuclear project.”

Further project management guidance and good practices on managing a nuclear power plant project are available in a variety of sources such as IAEA Safety Standards and the IAEA Nuclear Energy Series .

A nuclear power plant must be managed in a safe and efficient manner throughout its entire life cycle, from design through decommissioning, with the overall goal of providing reliable and affordable electricity. Read more how the IAEA is helping here .

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Manufacturing business plans for private nuclear reactor in Butte

A private nuclear power plant could come to Butte. The company behind the plan said it has backing from local government.

Butte-Silver Bow commissioners at a recent meeting were enthusiastic about the nuclear energy proposal from XGen Holdings and the manufacturing jobs it could bring.

Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher told commissioners he’d been working with the company for several months on the project and said the state was also aware of it.

“This is real. This is an opportunity for Butte-Silver Bow. It’s something I think I can stand behind and I can support,” Gallagher said.

XGen Holdings President Christian Barlow said he intends to purchase 160 acres of land west of Butte to headquarter his company and its manufacturing plants.

He said Westinghouse Electric Corporation agreed to build a small, modular nuclear reactor to power his operation. While discussing the proposal, Barlow told commissioners the following:

“We’ve already talked with the NRC, which is the federal regulation for nuclear power plants. We have talked with them; we have already been greenlit to build here. We do have NRC’s blessing. We’ve gone through a lot of that vetting process already.”

However, after the initial publication of this story, Nuclear Regulatory Commission public affairs officer Scott Burnell told MTPR the agency has not approved the nuclear reactor XGen Holdings described, and that the agency is not reviewing any applications for the reactor from XGen Holdings.

Burnell’s full statement is below:

“There are no applications for XGen before the NRC. There are no approvals from the NRC for the project XGen has described.

The NRC is in early discussions with Westinghouse for the designs that XGen has mentioned. Those are early discussions. There is no application under review for either design. For the micro-reactor that was part of the discussion, the NRC is in “pre-application” discussions with Westinghouse. The company is providing individual pieces of information that, in the future, could be part of an application. But there is nothing in front of the agency that would approve that design for use.”

MTPR reached out to XGen Holdings president Christian Barlow and Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher and requested clarification on Barlow’s comments.

XGen’s proposed manufacturing plants would build products used in night-vision goggles and air filtration.

Barlow also told commissioners that because the modular nuclear reactors are mobile and air-cooled, the county would not have to “deal with” waste.

Barlow said he intends to have the first reactors online by January 2026. State lawmakers in 2021 repealed a policy that required any proposal for nuclear power to go before voters.

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Our world needs more low-carbon power than ever. Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has been established to develop an affordable power plant that generates electricity using a small modular reactor - an intelligent way to meet our future energy needs.

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Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactors

Clean affordable energy for all

We are faced with an unprecedented demand for clean energy as global markets seek solutions to support their journey to net zero. The demand is for energy that is always on and which generates virtually no emissions.

Nuclear energy is the most powerful source of ‘always on’ clean energy, however, it must be deliverable, scalable and cost competitive for it to be widely embraced. Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has designed a factory built nuclear power plant that will offer clean, affordable energy for all.

Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd

The Small Modular Reactor (SMR) business is one of the ways that Rolls-Royce is helping to ensure the UK continues to develop innovative ways to tackle the global threat of climate change.

With the Rolls-Royce SMR technology, we have developed a clean energy solution which can deliver cost competitive and scalable net zero power for multiple applications - from grid and industrial electricity production to hydrogen and synthetic fuel manufacturing.

Find out more at www.Rolls-Royce-SMR.com

Our SMR value proposition has 4 key elements for SMR success – we are bringing to market a low cost, deliverable, global and scalable and investable solution:

A highly competitive source of ‘always on’ clean energy, meeting global challenges in an affordable and investable way.

Rolls-Royce SMR is a low-cost clean energy solution, using proven and commercially available technology to deliver a fully integrated, factory built nuclear power plant.

With a relentless focus on modularisation, and maximising the amount of work conducted under factory conditions, we are able to revolutionise how nuclear power gets delivered.

Deliverable

Rolls Royce SMR will use the breadth of the UK supply chain, which is able to contribute more than 80% of each SMR by value – focusing on standardised, commercially available and off-the-shelf components.

Rolls-Royce SMR will move away from the high cost and high-risk complex construction programme principles into predictable factory-built commodities.

Approximately 90% of manufacturing and assembly activities are carried out in factory conditions, helping to maintain an extremely high-quality product - reducing on-site disruption and supporting international roll out.

Global & scalable

Making a meaningful impact across multiple countries, meeting unprecedented demand for clean energy.

The need for clean energy has created a global demand for our SMR as countries look for ways to provide reliable ways to achieve net zero. Our SMR has been designed in direct response to that enormous global challenge and our ambitions are set to match that global market as we look to build a world class global product.

Our factory-built model is entirely scalable. As demand increases, we invest in further factories using the same design and management systems used for all our SMRs.

Rolls-Royce SMR will support international efforts to decarbonise energy systems, with a forecast to target £250bn of exports. Memorandums of Understanding are already in place with Estonia, Turkey and the Czech Republic.

The Rolls-Royce SMR programme is forecast to create 40,000 regional UK jobs by 2050 and generate £52bn in economic benefit.

The compact footprint increases site flexibility and maximises potential plant locations, including replacement for existing coal or gas-fired plants.

Designed to attract traditional forms of capital through a low-risk factory-based solution.

By design, our SMR is focused on attracting all forms of private capital to support the build out of global SMR demand. With a proven factory built commoditised approach, our SMR will offer investors and lenders a degree of confidence that will enable future customers to access a range of capital options to finance their SMR purchase.

For nuclear energy to play a meaningful and more significant role in our net zero ambitions, it must be financeable without the need for Government intervention in the long term.

A Rolls-Royce SMR power station will have the capacity to generate 470MW of low carbon energy, equivalent to more than 150 onshore wind turbines. It will provide consistent baseload generation for at least 60 years, helping to support the roll-out of renewable generation.

In addition to stable base load power, Rolls-Royce SMRs will be able to provide energy for the net zero manufacture of green hydrogen and synthetic fuels to support the decarbonisation of transport.

It will occupy approximately one tenth of the size of a conventional nuclear generation site, helping to reduce local environmental impacts. Rolls-Royce SMR will be factory built, enabling completed modules to be transported by truck, train or barge, reducing vehicle movements and completion risk and increasing build time certainty.

A single Rolls-Royce SMR power station will occupy the footprint of two football pitches and power approximately one million homes. It can support both on-grid electricity and a range of off-grid clean energy solutions, enabling the decarbonisation of industrial processes and the production of clean fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and green hydrogen, to support the energy transition in the wider heat and transportation sectors.

As a major shareholder in Rolls-Royce SMR, we will continue to support its path to successful deployment. Find out more at www.rolls-royce-smr.com .

Building an SMR

Rolls-Royce SMR offers a radically different approach to delivering nuclear power

We have drastically reduced the amount of construction activities and transformed the delivery environment, from a large complex infrastructure programme into a factory built commoditised product.

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How to reopen a nuclear power plant

Palisades Power Plant in Michigan could be the first shut-down nuclear plant to restart operations.

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A shut-down nuclear power plant in Michigan could get a second life thanks to a $1.52 billion loan from the US Department of Energy. If successful, it will be the first time a shuttered nuclear power plant reopens in the US.  

Palisades Power Plant shut down on May 20, 2022, after 50 years of generating low-carbon electricity. But the plant’s new owner thinks economic conditions have improved in the past few years and plans to reopen by the end of 2025.

A successful restart would be a major milestone for the US nuclear fleet, and the reactor’s 800 megawatts of capacity could help inch the country closer to climate goals. But reopening isn’t as simple as flipping on a light switch—there are technical, administrative, and regulatory hurdles ahead before Palisades can start operating again. Here’s what it takes to reopen a nuclear power plant.

Step 1: Stay ready

One of the major reasons Palisades has any shot of restarting is that the site’s new owner has been planning on this for years. “Technically, the stars had all aligned for the plant to stay operating,” says Patrick White, research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit think tank.

Holtec International supplies equipment for nuclear reactors and waste and provides services like decommissioning nuclear plants. Holtec originally purchased Palisades with the intention of shutting it down, taking apart the facilities, and cleaning up the site. The company has decommissioned other recently shuttered nuclear plants, including Indian Point Energy Center in New York. 

Changing economic conditions have made continued operation too expensive to justify for many nuclear power plants, especially smaller ones. Those with a single, relatively small reactor, like Palisades, have been the most vulnerable.  

Once a nuclear power plant shuts down, it can quickly become difficult to start it back up. As with a car left out in the yard, White says, “you expect some degradation.” Maintenance and testing of critical support systems might slow down or stop. Backup diesel generators, for example, would need to be checked and tested regularly while a reactor is online, but they likely wouldn’t be treated the same way after a plant’s shutdown, White says.

Holtec took possession of Palisades in 2022 after the reactor shut down and the fuel was removed. Even then, there were already calls to keep the plant’s low-carbon power on the grid, says Nick Culp, senior manager for government affairs and communications at Holtec.

The company quickly pivoted and decided to try to keep the plant open, so records and maintenance work largely continued. “It looks like it shut down yesterday,” Culp says.

Because of the continued investment of time and resources, starting the plant back up will be more akin to restarting after a regular refueling or maintenance outage than starting a fully defunct plant. After maintenance is finished and fresh fuel loaded in, the Palisades reactor could restart and provide enough electricity for roughly 800,000 homes.

Step 2: Line up money and permission

Support has poured in for Palisades, with the state of Michigan setting aside $300 million in funding for the plant’s restart in the last two years. And now, the Department of Energy has issued a conditional loan commitment for $1.52 billion.

Holtec will need to meet certain technical and legal conditions to get the loan money, which will eventually be repaid with interest. (Holtec and the DOE Loan Programs Office declined to give more information about the loan’s conditions or timeline.)

The state funding and federal loan will help support the fixes and upgrades needed for the plant’s equipment and continue paying the approximately 200 workers who have stayed on since its shutdown. The plant employed about 700 people while it was operating, and the company is now working on rehiring additional workers to help with the restart, Culp says.  

One of the major remaining steps in a possible Palisades restart is getting authorization from regulators, as no plant in the US has restarted operations after shutting down. “We’re breaking new ground here,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear engineering at MIT. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees nuclear power plants in the US, but the agency doesn't have a specific regulatory framework for restarting operations at a nuclear power plant that has shut down and entered decommissioning, White says. The NRC created a panel that will oversee reopening efforts.

Palisades effectively gave up the legal right to operate when it shut down and took the fuel out of the reactor. Holtec will need to submit detailed plans to the NRC with information about how it plans to reopen and operate the plant safely. Holtec formally began the process of reauthorizing operations with the NRC in October 2023 and plans to submit the rest of its materials this year.

Step 3: Profit?

If regulators sign off, the plan is to have Palisades up and running again by the end of 2025. The fuel supply is already lined up, and the company has long-term buyers committed for the plant’s full power output, Culp says.

If all goes well, the plant could be generating power until at least 2051, 80 years after it originally began operations.

Expanded support for low-carbon electricity sources, and nuclear in particular, have helped make it possible to extend the life of older plants across the US. “This restart of a nuclear plant represents a sea change in support for clean firm power,” says Julie Kozeracki, a senior advisor for the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.

As of last year, a majority of Americans (57%) support more nuclear power in the country, up from 43% in 2016, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center . There’s growing funding available for the technology as well, including billions of dollars in tax credits for nuclear and other low-carbon energy included in the Inflation Reduction Act . 

Growing support and funding, alongside rising electricity prices, contribute to making existing nuclear plants much more valuable than they were just a few years ago, says MIT’s Buongiorno. “Everything has changed,” he adds.   

But even a successful Palisades restart wouldn’t mean that we’ll see a wave of other shuttered nuclear plants reopening around the US. “This is a really rare case where you had someone doing a lot of forward thinking,” White says. For other plants that are nearing decommissioning, it would be cheaper, simpler, and more efficient to extend their operations rather than allowing them to shut down in the first place. 

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Two 143-metre-tall towers set for implosion at German nuclear plant

The two colossal cooling towers at the decommissioned Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant in central Germany are set to be demolished in controlled blasts this coming Friday.

Standing 143 metres high with a base diameter of approximately 105 metres and a top diameter of about 64 metres, the two towers have been a fixture of the skyline south of the city of Schweinfurt.

If all goes according to plan, they will be flattened within seconds of each other by rapid implosions on August 16.

Spectators have been told they can watch the scene unfold from afar, with no ear protection or face masks necessary. Onlookers can position themselves along the Main river and in the fields and meadows outside of the blast exclusion zone.

Just before the demolition, there will be a bang to prevent birds still perched on the towers from being harmed.

"Thirty seconds - that's how long the party lasts," said the project manager at the Grafenrheinfeld plant, Matthias Aron.

The cost is just over €3 million ($3.3 million). More than two-thirds of the blown-up material can be reused, Aaron said.

It will be the second-ever demolition of cooling towers from a decommissioned German nuclear power plant.

The first demolition, in May 2020, involved two towers at the Philippsburg nuclear power plant. It took place without public attendance due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nuclear phase-out after Fukushima

Grafenrheinfeld had been in service for 33 years until 2015, when it was taken offline. Dismantling operations began in 2018 and, according to project manager Aron, will probably take another 10 years.

Germany was so alarmed by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011 that then-chancellor Angela Merkel announced a phase-out of nuclear power in the country. Eight older nuclear power plants were permanently taken offline by the summer of 2011.

After six decades of nuclear energy in Germany, the last three nuclear plants were shut down in April 2023. The dismantling and clearing of the sites will take years.

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Working beyond the design life of a nuclear energy plant

Andrew Buckley

Technical Manager, ABS Consulting Ltd.

Aug 09, 2024

Andrew Buckley explores nuclear risk assessments through finite element analysis and seismic walkdowns

Around 100 of those reactors globally have already had their operating licences extended. (Image source: archives)

More than two-thirds of the world’s 442 nuclear power reactors are now over 30 years old and approaching or already surpassing the end of their originally anticipated 40-year lifespan, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Around 100 of those reactors globally have already had their operating licences extended. The IAEA also projects that, unless more operating licences are extended, existing nuclear capacity will decline sharply before 2030, particularly in Europe and North America, with all existing plants scheduled to retire by 2060.

Set against the background of an electricity generation sector that faces the immense challenge of shifting almost entirely from fossil fuels to low carbon energy sources by 2050, extending the lifespan of nuclear power generation plants, as we have seen with EDF’s Hartlepool and Heysham 1 plants, could provide an effective route to help meet the UK’s future low emissions energy goals.

Although nuclear plants themselves do not have a set-in-stone lifespan, their components do. To continue to run a plant beyond the design mark that every nuclear facility was built with, you should make a case that nothing has deteriorated that could cause problems if left unaddressed. A recent example of this is EDF Energy extending the operating life of its Hartlepool and Heysham 1 nuclear plants by two years to March 2026, having originally been due to end generation in 2014. To achieve their objectives, EDF needed the justification to state their extension case to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) in the shape of proof that the plants can safely achieve what they want them to.

It is important to also state that the lifetime extension justification process equally applies to any organisation with a nuclear licence, not purely power generation plants.

Stating the case for lifetime extension

There are clear arguments for lifetime extensions within the UK’s existing nuclear plants. Compared with a nuclear new build, lifetime extension projects can be far less capital intensive, with significantly shorter construction times, better cost controls and less construction delays. So, it makes sense to state the case for their lifespan extension, particularly against emission reductions targets. But lifetime extensions should look way beyond the graphite core itself and its behaviour. Every aspect of a nuclear plant’s operation should be assessed and proven to remain capable of safe operation.

The case for lifetime extension focuses on the operator evidencing that they have identified and are safely managing any ageing effects in systems, structures, and components. Further, it should confirm that the operational, structural, and environmental parameters, conditions have deteriorated and that risks to individuals and the environment have not increased.

Safety sits at the heart of any lifetime extension plan and within their Safety Case, operators should consider any new or escalated levels of risk, hazard, or standards that have been introduced. It is also important to consider that the Safety Case will be constantly evolving as equipment is replaced after reaching the end of its life.

 So, what should nuclear plant operators be looking at when they are considering the evidential case for extending the lifespan of their nuclear operations?

The role of modelling, simulation and seismic walkdowns to support nuclear risk assessments

Finite element analysis

By using finite element analysis (FEA), we can study the behaviour of structures, plants and equipment when subjected to both normal operating (day-to-day) and design loadings and extreme hazards such as seismic, weather impact and blast loads. These include linear and non-linear approaches and analysis methodologies.

Seismic walkdown

Seismic walkdowns are also invaluable in this process, providing a real time review of the facility, its infrastructure and the plant and equipment in its current condition and location. This is important as it can take account of any variations from concept, design or installation drawings or references and assesses the true condition, including material degradation and damage. Additionally, the seismic walkdown review enables the identification and consideration of potential interactions with adjacent plants and equipment that could occur during seismic events, which might not be considered by a desktop-based assessment.

Both processes can be used to look at:

New Installations

Operators should provide detailed design analysis and assessments for any new structures, cranes or plant and equipment. It is important to demonstrate that existing structures and plants have been assessed for the potential impact of new hazards or loadings that could impact the safety case.

Operators should therefore consider:

• Seismic and condition walkdown surveys
• Structural assessment and substantiation against static and dynamic load cases, including blast, seismic and other natural hazards, such as climate change impacts
• Design of structural elements, connections and retrofit solutions to mitigate structural vulnerabilities
• Production of engineering substantiation calculations with technical specifications and drawings
• The impact of new installations with respect to existing structures, plant, and equipment
• Independent technical assessment (ITA)

Mechanical plant and equipment assessments

New and existing plant and equipment should be assessed against normal operations or extreme load cases as part of engineering substantiation. Review areas include:

Featured services:

• Facility walkdown assessments
• Engineering calculations to substantiate equipment and support systems
• Design of retrofit solutions packages
• Stress and fatigue analysis of pipe systems
• Analysis of pressurised systems
• Analysis of electrical supplies
• Equipment qualification utilising the Seismic Qualification Utility Group (SQUG) Generic Implementation Procedure (GIP)

Crane analysis and design review

Operators should understand the potential vulnerabilities associated with their cranes by quantifying associated risks, reducing potential safety and operational impacts. By considering variances in loading conditions, a detailed analysis can take place to understand the integrity of the structure. Review areas include:

• Structural/mechanical stress analysis
• Seismic assessment with coupled structural assessment
• Dynamic loading
• Structural plastic deformation
• Fatigue and stress condition analysis
• Design review against international codes of practice

Stating the safety case for extending the lifespan of a nuclear facility involves multiple complex processes involving every operational aspect of a plant. For those looking to extend the lifetime expectancy of a plant, having a clear, thought through plan utilising FEA and Seismic Walkdown methodologies, can be greatly beneficial.

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Nuclear experts believe Ghana has solid experience to operate nuclear power plants safely

Though the mention of a nuclear power plant evokes some fear among the public, experts say the country has a solid foundation, experiences, and competencies to operate the power plant safely.

“Work done by Ghana set it apart from other countries because it is building on its existing structure,” Mr Toshihiro Yamakawa, the General Manager of Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) International Cooperation Centre, tells the Ghana News Agency after a ten-member Ghanaian delegation toured the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant, in Japan as part of a scientific visit.

The thirst for cheaper and stable power is not limited to Ghana.

 Burkina Faso and Uganda have both signed agreements with Russia and China, respectively, to construct their first nuclear power plants.

Kenya, Morocco and Namibia are also working to add nuclear to their energy mix – all seeking to contribute towards closing the supply gap on a continent where over 600 million people lack access to electricity.

The study visit, which is in line with the Ghana Nuclear Programme Infrastructure Development agenda, offered the team a rare opportunity to see a nuclear plant containment chamber and the spent fuel storage site.

It was organised by the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) as part of its technical cooperation with the JAIF International Cooperation Centre (JICC) and supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ghana’s Mission in Tokyo.

Mr Yamakawa, who conducted team Ghana round, while commending the level of preparation, including site selection and assessment of vendor countries, says the public should not be troubled regarding issues of safety.

Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah laid the cornerstone for the establishment of the Ghana Atomic Project in 1963, culminating in the establishment of the now Ghana Atomic Energy Commission in 1964.

Subsequently, a research reactor was constructed and installed in 1994, through a Technical Cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with support from the Chinese government.

With an installed capacity of 5,454 megawatts of power, Ghana aims to add about 1,000 megawatts of power from nuclear to its electricity mix by 2034 as a base load to meet its energy needs.

Ghana’s nuclear infrastructure development is being implemented using the IAEA milestones approach, which has three phases and three milestones.

Furthermore, the country subjects itself to the IAEA peer-review mechanism to ensure that all activities follow international best practices.

Mr Yamakawa says after the Fukushima accident in Japan, subsequent technologies have been improved and made watertight to ensure safety.

“Ghanaians have no cause to be afraid of building a nuclear plant because the topmost priority in the industry is safety and security. Even workers go through several levels of security checks before accessing aspects of the plant,” he says.

Following the accident, Mr Yamakawa notes that the country shut down all its nuclear power plants and put in place a new safety regime (regulations).

All nuclear power plants have to meet these new safety standards before they can restart operations.

 Currently, only 17 power plants have successfully passed the new regulations and have been cleared to operate (12 in operation and 5 yet to start full operation).

“The Japanese government is working assiduously to re-activate the remaining plants as part of efforts to meet the international goal of clean energy,” he says.

Mr Hiroki Takimoto, also the General Manager of JAIF International Cooperation, says the nuclear plant requires a series of research and regulatory frameworks.

Ghana has already established this regulatory framework through the Nuclear Regulatory Act (ACT 895 of 2015).

This Act established the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, which is the mandated national institution that regulates all nuclear and radiation-related activities in the country.

This progress, he explains, must be matched with gradual confidence building of the public to carry them along the programme.

“It is just like getting a new neighbour, building confidence and trust is a process and this takes a bit of time, but it can be achieved over time,” he says.

Dr Archibold Buah-Kwofie, Acting Director of the Nuclear Power Institute, GAEC, says harnessing the potential of nuclear power is rooted in the country’s energy transition and investment plan.

It is expected to provide cost-effective baseload low-carbon power, which is why the GAEC-NPI implementation of the new public education campaign is important to deepen the understanding of the public in the process and allay fears about nuclear.

This, he says, will be done through a new campaign that would be launched soon dubbed the “Nuclear Information, Communication and Education (NICE) campaign”.

Similar initiatives on education are being undertaken by Nuclear Power Ghana (NPG), the Owner and Operator of the proposed nuclear power plant, with continuous training of the media to educate the public.

NPG continues to sensitise state agencies and departments, civil society organisations, industries through the Association of Ghana Industries, and tertiary institutions on nuclear science and technology.

Mr Ernest Owusu-Afari, who led the Ghanaian Delegation, says the social acceptance of nuclear energy by industry and households is critical for its successful implementation and that continuous education on the processes is important.

“I may not be the most technical person to speak to this but from what I have seen and learnt, I appreciate the caution and precaution put in place by the Japanese nuclear stakeholders at the plant sites. We believe these structures are being put in place.

“Physically, there is tight security to access the premises. Cyber security protocols are in place to protect the information communication and technology infrastructure. I believe that these will be replicated in Ghana.”

Mr Owusu-Afari, who is also the Private Sector Representative on the NPI/GAEC Board, says although there are concerns among a section of the public, nuclear power plants is the best.

“We will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we do not make good use of the atom, a resource given to man by God just like others. It has been done safely and responsibly by other countries and Ghana can do the same,” he says.

By Albert Oppong-Ansah

Source: GNA

miLife Insurance, GNAT pay GHS30,866.00 disability claim

Patriotic Muslim Front bemoans high Hajj costs

Please and please again, respect yourselves, we dont want any problem, we already struggling with the little problem we have you want to add this.abeg respect yourself

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Biden’s $1.5 Billion Deal To Resurrect A Nuclear Plant Is Facing Fresh Drama

Senior Reporter, HuffPost

The United States’ effort to reverse the permanent shutdown of a nuclear station for the first time hit a potential snag this week when an ex-employee at the facility went public with safety concerns about reopening the 53-year-old power plant.

Now the company that owns the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station on Michigan’s southwest coast is hitting back at what it called a series of “assumptions” and “inaccurate statements” from Alan Blind, a former engineering director.

Blind’s seven-year tenure overlapped with “a period when the plant performed poorly and required significant improvements” and ended nearly a decade before its closure two years ago, according to Florida-based Holtec International, which bought the station from utility giant Entergy following its shutdown in May 2022.

In an unusually pointed 1,000-word rebuttal, Holtec said “significant investments, upgrades, and modifications were made by the prior owner to dramatically and measurably improve plant reliability” in the nine years after Blind’s departure. The company said the process is “on schedule” and announced at a public meeting this month that the plant is on track to reopen in October 2025.

But Blind cast doubt on Holtec’s proposed budget and timeline for restoring Palisades given that no U.S. reactor has ever come back online after ceasing operations ahead of a planned demolition.

Resurrecting the Palisades plant is among the most closely watched nuclear projects in the nation now that construction is finally finished on the only two new reactors built from scratch in a generation.

While atomic energy is considered by far the most reliable source of carbon-free electricity ever harnessed, the steep cost and decade-long timelines for constructing new plants limit the potential for nuclear power to meet Americans’ surging electricity demand, stem rising blackouts and slash planet-heating pollution from fossil fuels.

New laws Congress passed over the past three years made billions of dollars available to the nuclear energy industry to extend the operating lives of existing plants, build new reactors and catch up with Russia and China on next-generation nuclear power technologies.

The money is going out. In January, the Biden administration put up $1.1 billion to keep California’s last nuclear power station from closing. Two months later, the Department of Energy offered Holtec a loan worth $1.5 billion to make Palisades the first U.S. nuclear plant to ever come back online after shutting down in preparation for decommissioning.

At least two other utilities are now considering restarting shuttered nuclear reactors, including the unit at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania that did not melt down in 1979.

On Monday, Reuters cited Blind saying the Palisades plant received waivers from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that exempted the facility from modern safety standards that prevent insulation on pipes from breaking down and clogging cooling systems, guard against earthquakes and curb risks from fires.

“I’m worried that the NRC will not insist that the generic safety issues be … fixed before they allow Palisades to restart,” Blind said in the newswire report published Monday.

But in its rebuttal, Holtec said Palisades has not filed for exemptions on any of the issues Blind laid out, calling all but one of his claims “inaccurate.” The company acknowledged that it had deferred upgrades to the fire system due to the shutdown, but said those are “now being completed as required by the NRC prior to restart.”

In an hour-long interview with HuffPost on Friday, Blind said Reuters had inaccurately described his complaints as being about NRC exemptions. (Reuters did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.)

But Blind said Entergy had, for years, postponed complying with requests from the NRC only to ultimately give up its operating license and sell to Holtec, which primarily works to disassemble and demolish defunct nuclear plants. Given the billion-dollar cost overruns and delays in building new reactors elsewhere in the U.S., Blind said “there’s no basis” for Holtec’s proposed schedule and that “there’s no basis that the NRC is even going to approve any of it.”

“That’s all pending,” he said by phone. “There’s just so many questions about this whole thing that the probability of success has to be considered to be very low.”

The NRC said the agency’s staff “was already aware of every safety-related issue Mr. Blind has raised.”

“Holtec must demonstrate it has resolved those issues before the agency will reach a decision on whether to authorize a resumption of operations at Palisades,” Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesperson, said in an email. “The NRC’s safety and environmental reviews, as well as inspections of work Holtec has underway, continue on schedule.”

The agency said the process would take about a year.

The NRC has no rule specifically tailored to restarting a shuttered nuclear plant. Blind said the Palisades project should be halted until the agency enacts such a regulation, and submitted a petition to the NRC urging the agency to begin a formal rulemaking process.

But Burnell said the NRC previously supervised the Tennessee Valley Authority’s restoration of Unit 1 of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in the mid-2000s, two decades after the reactor went dormant for repairs.

“This is not a perfect analog, but in the 2000s, the Tennessee Valley Authority took several years to return Browns Ferry Unit 1 to operations,” Burnell said. “The NRC’s oversight of that process was similar to what is currently underway with the Palisades effort.”

While Holtec acknowledged fraying insulation could clog cooling systems, the company said the issue “is known within the industry” and would be dealt with prior to any restart.

Sola Talabi, a reactor safety expert at the University of Michigan who specialized in the breakdown of pipe insulation, called the problem “a generic industry issue” with straightforward fixes.

“None of what was mentioned is new or unknown,” Talabi, who is not involved in the Palisades project, said after reviewing Blind’s claims. “There are solutions that can be implemented to address those issues.”

“To me, the question is not, ‘Can it be done in a year?’ but rather, ‘Why should it take more than a year?’” - Sola Talabi, nuclear safety expert at the University of Michigan

Talabi, a 24-year industry veteran who has focused most of his career on safety issues, said, “It is good practice for a concerned employee to raise an issue.”

“That’s generally encouraged as part of the nuclear safety culture,” he said. “It’s good that if you see something, say something. That’s how we’re all trained.”

But Talabi said there was no reason for any of the issues Blind raised to delay Holtec’s timeline for bringing Palisades’ single mothballed reactor back online in roughly a year.

“To me, the question is not, ‘Can it be done in a year?’ but rather, ‘Why should it take more than a year?’” Talabi said.

Blind described himself as “pro-nuclear” in the Reuters story and told HuffPost he does not see himself as an advocate against the industry. But he said he shares the view of anti-nuclear activists such as Bill McKibben and Greta Thunberg that operating plants should remain open without constructing new reactors like the ones countries such as China, India and Poland are banking on to meet climate goals.

Blind said he would only support the construction of new reactors once the U.S. develops a plan to store the radioactive waste the industry produces, which is minuscule relative to the air pollution and planet-heating carbon dioxide fossil fuels generate and the growing trash heaps of busted solar panels and wind turbines.

In May, Blind appeared in six episodes of a podcast series released by the anti-nuclear advocacy group Beyond Nuclear. The other major guests on the show were the longtime anti-nuclear activist Kevin Kamps and Mark Z. Jacobson, the controversial Stanford University professor behind widely contested claims that solar panels and wind turbines are sufficient to replace fossil fuels.

Blind said he doesn’t agree with everything Beyond Nuclear promotes. A spokesperson for the Maryland-based nonprofit did not return a call requesting comment Friday morning.

“Hopefully it was clear my views were specific to Palisades and didn’t go beyond that,” he said.

What happens at Palisades will likely ripple far beyond Michigan, however.

“We’ve obviously seen what happened with Palisades,” Joe Dominguez, the chief executive of Constellation Energy, said in May during a quarterly earnings call with investors. “I think that was brilliant.”

In July, Dominguez’s company — the largest operator of nuclear reactors in the country — floated plans to restart the unit of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power station.

NextEra Energy, the nation’s biggest renewables operator, is considering bringing back its Duane Arnold Energy Center, the central Iowa facility that closed in 2020.

“There would be opportunities and a lot of demand from the market if we were able to do something with Duane Arnold,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on a call with investors last month.

“We’re looking at it,” he added. “But we would only do it if we could do it in a way that is essentially risk-free, with plenty of mitigants around the approach. There are a few things we would have to work through.”

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