9 Decommissioning the Joint Research Centre's
nuclear research facilities
| (25699)
9818/04
SEC(04) 621
| Commission Communication: Decommissioning of nuclear installations and waste management — Nuclear liabilities arising out of activities of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) carried out under the Euratom Treaty
|
| Legal base | — |
| Department | Trade and Industry
|
| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 9 July 2004
|
| Previous Committee Report | HC 42-xxv (2003-04), para 3 (30 June 2004)
|
| To be discussed in Council | No date set
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Cleared
|
Background
9.1 The Commissions Joint Research Centre (JRC) has a number of
ageing nuclear research facilities, and its original management
policy was one of keeping them in a state of safe conservation
(abeyance). However, the Commission considers such an approach
to be very costly, and, in a Communication[15]
in March 1999, it proposed a long-term action programme under
which obsolete installations would be decommissioned. It also
proposed that this work should be funded, not by additional resources,
but by transferring credits from research and development to a
newly-created budget heading.
9.2 At that time, the UK accepted that the decommissioning
of obsolete nuclear installations needed to be addressed, but
had expressed serious reservations, partly because of the suggestion
that money targeted for research should be diverted to cover decommissioning
costs, but also because it considered that the Commission had
failed to justify its conclusion that decommissioning, rather
than maintenance and surveillance, was the cheaper option. However,
the document was cleared, after the Government had said that the
Research Council was being asked to agree that the Commission
should undertake further work to produce a long-term plan, based
on an in-depth technical analysis of each site by an independent
panel, with a separate budget line being established to fund this
work.
9.3 In May 2004, the Commission produced this further
Communication. This deals with the implementation of the programme
between 1999 and 2003, and sets out an action plan for the longer
term, which makes clear the Commission's intention to maintain
its original approach, and to decommission all the existing installations.
The Communication also makes it clear that the costs of the decommissioning
programme have risen sharply since the original evaluation.
9.4 In our Report of 30 June 2004, we noted that
the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science and Innovation
at the Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville)
had simply said that there was a clear need to decommission obsolete
nuclear installations at the JRC sites, and to have decommissioning
plans in train for the closure of those installations still in
use. He added that the proposals made here appeared to provide
an acceptable way forward in dealing with this issue, and that
there were no direct financial implications for the UK arising
from them. However, to the extent that this approach differed
from that taken by the Government previously, we said that we
would like to know the reason for this, and also to have an indication
whether the UK accepted the significant increase in the estimated
cost of the programme, and whether its previous concerns that
funds earmarked for research were being diverted to this programme
had been addressed satisfactorily.
Minister's letter of 9 July 2004
9.5 We have now received a letter of 9 July from
the Minister, in which he says that the UK's attitude to decommissioning
is itself more proactive than it was in 1999, exemplified by the
proposed establishment of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
on 1 April 2005. He adds that, following on from concerns raised
by the UK and others that the original proposals had not been
subject to external validation and analysis, the Commission agreed
to submit its proposals to a lengthy process of independent evaluation
by an international consortium of eleven experts, and that the
proposals have been revised to take account of the consortium's
advice. He says that the Government feels that the proposals
as they now stand, including their cost elements, have been thoroughly
examined by these outside experts in a way which meets the spirit
of the UK's earlier concerns.
9.6 On the question of cost, the Minister says that,
whilst the Government has noted the substantial increase, it is
prepared to accept that these costs — which he points out
were vetted by the consortium and agreed by the JRC's Board of
Governors — can be justified, not least because of increasingly
stringent national requirements in the countries where the reactors
in question are located. He also points out that, as the UK requested
in 1999, the bulk of the funding for this activity is now from
a specific dedicated budget line, rather than out of under-spends
in the Framework Programme for Research, though a small element
of funding for decommissioning activity is included in the Sixth
Framework Programme's budget for Euratom actions carried out at
the JRC which amounts to €290 million for the years 2003-06.
He says that this arrangement was accepted with considerable
reluctance by the Council and European Parliament when that Programme
was agreed, and that the intention is that in future all decommissioning
expenditure should be completely separated from JRC research budgets.
Conclusion
9.7 We are grateful to the Minister for this further
information, and now clear the document.
15 (20239) 8245/99; see HC 34-xxvii (1998-99), para
5 (21 July 1999), HC 23-ii (1999-2000), para 11 (1 December 1999)
and HC 23-x (1999-2000), para 7 (1 March 2000). Back
|
