UK Wyfla nuclear plant to shut 2010, smelter threat

LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) Britain's Wylfa nuclear power plant, the chief electricity supplier to the UK's second largest aluminium smelter, will shut in 2010 after the decomissioning authority confirmed on Thursday it will not extend its life.

Britain gets about a fifth of its power from nuclear but is committed to closing all but one of its fleet of ageing nuclear power plants over the next 20 years.

Decommissioning and cleaning up costs for existing civil nuclear plants are running at about 70 billion pounds (0.8 billion), the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said in a statement.

Last week's government-comissioned Energy Review came out in favor of building a new generation of nuclear generators, arguing that nuclear power had an important role to play in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and ensuring energy supply.

But the fate of Wylfa, on the island of Anglesey off Wales, was sealed after the NDA concluded an extension would be ''extremely difficult to achieve as well as being uneconomic.'' The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate in May granted formal consent to decommission the 430-MW Sizewell A station in eastern England once it stops generating at the end of this year. The plant started up in 1966.

The 438-MW Dungeness A reactor in Kent is awaiting formal decomissioning consent from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. It too is due to shut at the end of this year.

Sizewell B, which is Britain's newest nuclear power plant, is not due to be closed until 2035.

SELLAFIELD The 135,000 tonnes a year capacity Anglesey Aluminium Ltd smelter at Holyhead, jointly owned by Rio Tinto, and U.S. Kaiser Aluminium Corp., gets most of its power from Wyfla.

The NDA is therefore aiming to operate Wylfa until December 2010, nine months later than previously planned.

The NDA looked at operations at the Springfields nuclear fuel manufacturing plant, at the Sellafield fuel reprocessing facilities and at Wyfla itself with a view to giving the plant a temporary reprieve.

But the costs involved in upgrading Wyfla's safety alone could run to as much as 100 million pounds (4.3 million), the authority said.

The NDA also found there were ''significant difficulties'' in materials sourcing, supply of parts, and availability of plant and people to manufacture the Magnox fuel at Springfields that Wylfa would need to keep on running beyond 2010.

At Sellafield further costs would be incurred from maintaining the Magnox reprocessing plant beyond 2010. Extending the reprocessing schedule would mean altering the programme for reprocessing and general decommissioning at Sellafield, the NDA concluded.

The UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling has agreed with the NDA's conclusion that there was ''no realistic case'' to be made for an extension beyond 2010.

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