The British government has taken the first steps towards selling off British Nuclear Fuels Limited, the company which runs Sellafield.
The cost of cleaning up Britain's civil nuclear waste, estimated at stg£40bn, is to be taken away from operators such as British Nuclear Fuels. The task will become the responsibility of a new British state company.
Most of Britain's spent nuclear fuel, nuclear equipment, and nuclear waste is stored at Sellafield (operated by BNFL) and at the UK Atomic Energy Authority's site at Dounreay in Scotland.
These two organisations now will not have to pay for the disposal of that material, following an announcement that a new state company called the Liabilities Management Authority is to be set up.
The LMA will take on responsibility for the multi-billion pound disposal job. The cost of storing the leftovers from Britain's civil nuclear programmes of the nineteen 40s, 50s and 60s is astronomical.
The British government has long hoped to privatise British Nuclear Fuels but the company has been seen as a lame duck, hamstrung with an enormous nuclear clean-up bill.
This announcement means the British government is now taking on the liability for cleaning up BNFL's waste and, although the Trade and Industry Secretary says this is not about privatisation, it will make the company a far more attractive commercial proposition in the years ahead.
