Sellafield executives to face MPs as nuclear clean-up bill rises over £70bn

Source: Guardian

The bill for cleaning up the huge Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria will rise even higher than its current estimated level of £70bn as operators struggle to assess the full scale of the task, according to sources close to the project.

The warning comes just days before private sector managers face a grilling from the public accounts committee, which is investigating activities at the facility.

It was hoped that the huge bill – eight times the cost of staging the London Olympics – would be capped at £70bn, but well-placed sources have told the Guardian that the operators are convinced they are still "not at the top" of the cost curve.

Sellafield is regarded as the most dangerous and polluted industrial site in western Europe, not least because it houses 120 tonnes of plutonium, the largest civilian stockpile in the world.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/01/sellafield-nuclear-clean-up-cost-rises