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Environment

Cost of new UK underground nuclear waste facility jumps to £53 billion

A larger volume of waste and 'more realistic' scope of costs has resulted in a bigger price tag for building and operating a long-term storage facility for radioactive waste

By Adam Vaughan

24 February 2022

2AK7R1N Sizewell nuclear power station in Suffolk, UK

The Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk, UK

David J. Green/Alamy

The cost of a proposed underground storage facility to safely house the UK’s nuclear waste for millennia has risen to as much as £53 billion in the past four years, more than double the previous estimate, according to a new government report.

The UK currently stores its , and the quantity is projected to swell to more than 4 million cubic metres in future. In 2018, the for a community in England willing to host an…

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