Dounreay clean up will cost £4,000 miliion

Vast amounts of taxpayers money will be spend cleaning up the Dounreay site which has been polluted with radiation after decades of nuclear work. The UK Atomic Energy Authority revealed on 9 October 2000 that they would spend 60 years decommissioning the site in four stages:

(1) Building new nuclear waste storage plants.
(2) Removing waste from the shaft at a cost of £355 million.
(3) Decommissioning fuel processing and handling plants.
(4) Complete decommissioning of three reactors.
(5) Major areas of site suitable for de-licencing.

Despite this the UKAEA say that there will be some parts of the site which will remain off-limits to the public for the next 300 years. A graphic produced by the government nuclear agency showed the future site as green, with the exception of the golf ball of the Dounreay Fast Reactor.

This plan is a clear indication of the real costs of nuclear power, both in financial terms and to the environment. Dounreay has been a complete disaster.