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→Pay it again, Sam: - add ref
:"...Electricity consumers have already paid for the decommissioning of the Magnox plants. In the 1989 pre-privatisation accounts of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB), £3.8bn of assets was set against the decommissioning liability. Taking account of inflation and allowing, say, 3% annual real rate of return, this sum should have about doubled by now. This notional amount was simply absorbed by government when the industry was privatised and was used to subsidise government spending.
:"There was also the Fossil Fuel Levy, which was a sum paid by electricity consumers (10% of their electricity bills) from 1990-98, to which electricity consumers contributed about £8bn. Michael Heseltine told Parliament this was ‘to decommission old unsafe stations’. In fact, it was used for almost anything but that, and paid for a new nuclear power plant (Sizewell B) and was unrestricted cash income for Nuclear Electric to pay for its losses. Despite its best efforts, Nuclear Electric, the nationally owned company that inherited all the CEGB’s nuclear assets, did not manage to spend it all and £2.7bn remained unspent when the nuclear industry was reorganised in 1996. A small amount went to British Energy’s (the privatised company that inherited the more modern nuclear plants) segregated decommissioning fund and the rest went to BNFL, who inherited the Magnox plants. There, it was placed in the Nuclear Liabilities Investment Portfolio (NLIP), a fund that was separately identified in BNFL’s accounts, but not strictly segregated. So if BNFL had faced bills it could not otherwise have paid, it would have to have drawn this fund down. The NLIP, with inflation and some capital growth now stands at about £4bn."[http://www.psiru.org/reports/2004-12-E-NDA.doc]
==Staff==