A larger volume of waste and ‘more realistic’ scope of costs has resulted in a bigger price tag for building and operating a long-term storage facility for radioactive waste
Environment
24 February 2022
The Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk, UK David J. Green/Alamy
The cost of a proposed underground storage facility to safely house the UK’s nuclear waste for millennia has risen to as much as £53 billion in the past four years, more than double the previous estimate, according to a new government report.
The UK currently stores its 133,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste above ground, and the quantity is projected to swell to more than 4 million cubic metres in future. In 2018, the government rebooted its search for a community …