11 months ago
2385
As the Chair of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee fears the ever-escalating cost of the Geological Disposal Facility, the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities wish to use this Halloween to reflect on the unfolding horror story that is the seemingly out-of-control plan to bring a monstrous nuclear waste dump to Cumbria.
Whilst Shakespeare’s three witches in Macbeth reflect that their cauldron contains ‘Fillet of a fenny snake, Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing’, this ghastly concoction appears relatively benign compared to the incredibly toxic radionuclides that are destined for deposit below the seabed. With some components deadly dangerous to human life for hundreds of thousands of years, this unholy heat-generating inventory also represents ‘a hell-broth, boil and bubble’.
The facility will comprise vaults and tunnels of a size that may be approximate to Bermuda, but without the devilish tax evaders, coupled with a 1 km square surface site that will periodically swallow up trainloads of toxic radioactive waste. It would be unsurprising if Nuclear Waste Services, the agency charged with finding and building the site, placed a job advert for its own Hades to manage this dystopic underworld and if the postholder engaged Cerberus to guard the entrance.
The plan comes with an enormous bill for taxpayers which will scare the ‘bejeebers’ out of taxpayers. Previously the Government’s new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) had identified in its August 2025 report that the GDF facility may have a whole life cost estimated to range from £20 billion to £53 billion. Now PAC members have had a further frightener placed on them because these headline figures were based on 2017/18 prices and they have found that, when adjusting to the present, the undersea radioactive monster might cost over £15 billion more. It would be far cheaper to hire Godzilla.
Even this is massively optimistic. For like the runaway Ghost Train, the timeline for delivery of the GDF is spiralling rapidly out of control. Within the last few years, it has been reported that the nuclear waste dump would be operational in the 2040s, then the 2050s, and now, most recently, the late 2050s. One of Macbeth’s witches asks her compatriots: ‘When shall we three meet again?’ In the case of the GDF, it appears around half a human lifetime, if they are expecting employment as operatives in the enterprise. And with every delay, the cost, and accompanying excruciating pain, to taxpayers will inexorably rise. It is all enough to make your head spin (like in The Exorcist).
The Public Accounts Committee Chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has called on the Government to produce a ‘coherent plan’ to manage the UK’s stockpile of radioactive waste, but, like the cry of the Werewolf baying to the moon, any call for sanity in the nightmare that is the nuclear unreality is likely to be futile.
NFLA Secretary Richard Outram recently told New Civil Engineer: “The sheer cost of decommissioning and the disposal of nuclear waste, which invariably falls upon the taxpayer, should lead any minister employing a modicum of common sense to preclude the construction of any more nuclear plants.”
So, we would like to end this seasonal reflection with our own plea for rationality – you could start by not producing anymore of the damned stuff!
May you have a Happy Halloween!
Ends://..For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
