British Nuclear Industry in Meltdown

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday September 06, 2002 11:12 by Graham Caswell caswell at indigo dot ie

Financial collpase follows safety scandals

Last night, British Energy, which runs eight nuclear power stations in the UK, warned that it faced insolvency unless immediate financial help was found (doublespeak for government subsidy).

Last night, British Energy, which runs eight nuclear power stations in the UK, warned that it faced insolvency unless immediate financial help was found.

The company, which was privatised in 1996, lost £518m last year and is heavily in debt.

David Porter of the Association of Electricity Producers told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that..."British Energy has responded to this quite magnificently by cutting its costs over the last few years," he said. Cost-cutting was behind the Bhopal disaster and other massive technology failures.

British Energy's difficulties follow last week's revelations of safety data by BNFL's largest customer for it's Sellafield MOX business.

Decommissioning and long term storage of nuclear waste makes nuclear power by far the most expensive source of electrical power ever invented.