I have written two posts about decommissioning of nuclear reactors. The focus was primarily on the problems in the United States. There are serious concerns that some companies running nuclear reactors do not have enough money set aside for decommissioning. And also that it may be difficult to estimate what such decommissioning wil ultimately cost. These concerns are also being expressed in the European Union with respect to the decommissioning of reactors in member states.
In 2011, a mandatory European Union Directive called on all member states to “provide a detailed cost estimate of all waste management steps up to disposal, including the associated activities, such as research and development." In 2013, the European commission issued a report that member states had not provided sufficiently detailed information on their decommissioning plans to satisfy the requirements of the 2011 mandate.
In addition, the report stated that the member nations were not in compliance with the Euratom Treaty requirements that they notify the Commission about decommissioning plans and efforts. Some of the notifications did not contain information about a fully developed decommissioning plan that was written into law. Such notifications were supposed to contain information about investment projects, amounts invested in funds, plans for dealing with the assets of such funds, how funds were to be managed, etc. The report did not name the countries that were not complying but did say that future notifications required detailed plans and at the very least, drafts of proposed legislation to provide the legal framework for the decommissioning funds.
Another problem highlighted by the report had to do with oversight for the decommissioning fund. There were some open questions about exactly who would have authority to monitor the funds and their compliance with EU regulations. The importance of having an independent monitoring authority separate from the fund managers was stressed. The report ended on a positive note saying that most of the member states had set aside adequate money for decommissioning.
When Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia applied for membership in the European Union, one of the conditions of membership was that old Soviet era nuclear reactors in the three countries had to be shut down. In return for the cost and effort to comply with this condition, the European Union agreed to provide funds for the decommissioning effort. Almost four billion dollars was set aside in the 2007 to 2013 EU budget for this project. Much of the money has been spent but there have been serious cost overruns, and charges of lack of coordination, serious delays, diffused responsibilities, poor priority setting and too much money going to other energy projects unrelated to decommissioning. One big problem is that some of the plants have not been “irreversibly shut down”.
The European Union has serious financial problems with some of the member states on the verge of bankruptcy and costly bailout plans being discussed. It is no stretch of the imagination to foresee a situation where an EU member state is unable to maintain the decommissioning funds required due to financial crashes. In that case, the EU would have to find the money somewhere else to deal with decommissioning. With the EU itself in danger of financial collapse if member states continue to have serious problems, it is not improbable that the EU would turn to the United States for help. So we may find ourselves in a situation where not only do our own nuclear operators default on decommissioning funds but members of the EU also default and turn to us for help. If the United States is also in serious financial trouble, we may wind up with shuttered and fenced shut down reactors that have not been decommissioned properly and constitute a serious public health problem.
