The Government has welcomed Germany's announcement of a timetable to end nuclear reprocessing, which will cost the Sellafield plant in Cumbria more than £1 billion worth of business.
The Minister of State for nuclear safety, Mr Joe Jacob, said any potential reduction in business for Sellafield was good news for Ireland in its unrelenting campaign to see reprocessing there ended on public health and environmental grounds.
But he struck a note of caution on "the financial implications of [Germany] terminating existing contracts with Britain and France" which had yet to be resolved. These meant "there still remain a number of uncertainties regarding the German government's intentions", he said.
He added: "However, it is clearly good news for Ireland as we have been consistently pressing for reprocessing at Sellafield to cease. The German move is a step in the right direction."
Despite what British Nuclear Fuels (which operates Sellafield) says, "it is another blow to Sellafield", said Green TD Mr John Gormley. When combined with continuing problems of operation, there was no long-term viability in the facility, he said.
In addition, the demands of the OSPAR convention on marine pollution of last year would kick in during 2000, further undermining its small profit margin. Notwithstanding its domestic demands, "the UK government should now be asking itself how can this plant be decommissioned", Mr Gormley said.
A Green MEP, Ms Nuala Ahern, said the German move would facilitate stronger demands by the Government for Britain to accelerate the winding-down of Sellafield when parties to OSPAR meet in Dublin on Tuesday. The Government should also align itself with Nordic countries which had been demanding an end to North Sea contamination arising from Sellafield, particularly Technetium-99 discharges.
Details of the impact for France were spelt out yesterday by the German environment minister, Mr Jurgen Trittin, who outlined the timetable to his French counterpart, Ms Dominque Voynet, during a visit to Paris. The French reprocessing company COGEMA, which operates the La Hague facility, stands to lose 20 per cent of its business, at a cost of $5.4 billion.
The German Chancellor, Mr Schroder, has anticipated that his government could be marching itself into a legal quagmire by phasing out nuclear energy use and the export of spent fuel too quickly. As a consequence, his junior coalition partners, the Greens, have agreed a phased withdrawal.
BNFL's response has been unequivocal. It noted it had contracts with German utilities for up to 2,200 tonnes of reprocessing "backed by intergovernment agreements signed by both the UK and German governments".
Its German customers had stated they wished to honour their contracts, while BNFL "would expect them to be honoured in full". Although it was important business for BNFL, notably its Thorp reprocessing plant, it represented "only a small fraction of our overall international business activities in the nuclear fuel cycle", a spokesman said.
