Sellafield nuclear clean-up too slow and too costly, say MPs
MPs have warned about the speed and cost of cleaning up the Sellafield nuclear waste dump and raised concerns over a “suboptimal” workplace culture at the site.Members of parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC) urged the government and bosses at the sprawling collection of crumbling buildings in Cumbria to get a grasp on the “intolerable risks” presented by its ageing infrastructure.In a detailed report into the site, the PAC said Sellafield was not moving quickly enough to tackle its biggest hazards; raised the alarm over its culture; and said the government was not ensuring value for money was being achieved from taxpayer funds.In 2023, the Guardian’s Nuclear Leaks investigation revealed a string of safety concerns at the site – including escalating fears over a leak of radioactive liquid from a decaying building known as the Magnox swarf storage silo (MSSS) – as well as cybersecurity failings and allegations of a poor workplace culture.The PAC – which heard evidence in March from Sellafield and its oversight body, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) – found that the state-owned company had missed most of its annual targets to retrieve waste from several buildings, including the MSSS.
“As a result of Sellafield’s underperformance [the MSSS] will likely remain extremely hazardous for longer,” the MPs said,The ultimate cost of cleaning up Sellafield, which contains waste from weapons programmes and atomic power generation, has been estimated at £136bn and could take more than 100 years,Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the PAC, said: “Unfortunately, our latest report is interleaved with a number of examples of failure, cost overruns, and continuing safety concerns,Given the tens of billions at stake, and the dangers on site to both the environment and human life, this is simply not good enough,”He added: “As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have.
“Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life,Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing,”MPs noted that one project, a now-paused replacement of an on-site lab, had resulted in “£127m wasted”,The cost of cleaning up Sellafield has caused tensions with the Treasury as the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, attempts to tighten public spending and spur growth,Sellafield, which is home to the world’s largest store of plutonium, said in February that nearly £3bn in new funding was “not enough”.
Last year, Sellafield apologised and was fined £332,500 after it pleaded guilty to criminal charges over years of cybersecurity failings.The PAC noted that the timeline for a government project to create a long-term deep underground store for nuclear waste, including that held at Sellafield, had slipped from 2040 to the late 2050s.The government is considering sites in Cumbria and Lincolnshire, although Lincolnshire county council is expected to withdraw the latter from the process after vocal local opposition.The MPs said they had found “indications of a suboptimal culture” at Sellafield, and noted that the NDA paid £377,200 in 2023-24 to settle employment-related claims.Alison McDermott, a former HR consultant who raised concerns over bullying and a “toxic culture” at the site, said she felt “vindicated” by the report.
Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe PAC urged the government to set out how it would hold the NDA and Sellafield to account over its performance.It said Sellafield should report annually on progress against targets and explain how it is addressing the deteriorating condition of its assets.The NDA should publish data on the prevalence of bullying and harassment at nuclear sites, it said.Clifton-Brown said there were “early indications of some improvements in Sellafield’s delivery” but said the government needed to do “far more” to ensure bosses safeguard the public and taxpayer funds.The NDA’s chief executive, David Peattie, responding on behalf of Sellafield, said: “We welcome the scrutiny of the committee and their report.
We will now look in more detail at the recommendations and consider how best to address them,“We take the findings seriously, and the safety of the site and the wellbeing of our people will always be our highest priorities,”A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We expect the highest standards of safety and security as former nuclear sites are dismantled, and the regulator is clear that public safety is not compromised at Sellafield,“We continue to support the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in its oversight of Sellafield, while driving value for money,This is underpinned by monthly performance reviews and increased responsibility for overseeing major project performance, enabling more direct scrutiny and intervention.
“We have zero-tolerance of bullying, harassment and offensive behaviour in the workplace – we expect Sellafield and the NDA to operate on this basis, investigate allegations and take robust action when needed.”
UK sales of new Tesla cars slump by more than a third amid Musk backlash
Sales of new Tesla cars slumped by more than a third in the UK last month as the electric carmaker lost ground to China’s BYD and other rivals, amid a political backlash against its billionaire boss, Elon Musk.Tesla sold 2,016 vehicles in the UK in May, down from 3,152 in May 2024 – a 36% drop, according to the monthly snapshot from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).The Chinese carmaker BYD’s sales in the UK jumped by 407%, from 596 in May last year to 3,025 last month. It sells hybrids as well as pure electric cars. BYD first overtook Tesla in January
Amazon ‘testing humanoid robots to deliver packages’
Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and “spring out” of its vans.The $2tn (£1.47tn) technology company is building a “humanoid park” in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project.The Information reported that the robots could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers. It is developing the artificial intelligence software that would power the robots but will use hardware developed by other companies
English-speaking countries more nervous about rise of AI, polls suggest
People in English-speaking countries including the UK, US, Australia and Canada are more nervous about the rise of artificial intelligence than those in the largest EU economies, where excitement over its spread is higher, new research suggests.A global split over what has been dubbed “the wonder and worry” of AI appears to correlate with widely divergent levels of trust in governments to regulate the fast-developing technology.The polling of 23,000 adults in 30 countries, shared exclusively with the Guardian by Ipsos Mori, also showed a quarter of people globally still do not have a good understanding of what AI is, despite it being widely described as the most transformative technology in decades.On Wednesday, Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus revealed he was writing a musical with the assistance of AI, describing it as “like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame”.Britons appear to be among the world’s most worried people about the rise of AI, with two-thirds of people in Great Britain saying they are nervous about the technology being deployed in products and services, and less than half trusting the UK government to regulate AI responsibly
Trump family disown debut of crypto wallet: ‘I know nothing about this project!’
A splashy website featuring an illustration of Donald Trump, looking buff and pumping his fist in the air, appeared online on Tuesday. The image is the logo of one of Trump’s digital currencies, and the website claims to be the “Official $Trump Wallet”, hawking a product that would allow customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, primarily the president’s own.The website prominently features the name of Trump’s coin, $Trump, and invites people to join the waitlist to use the digital wallet. It was first noticed by the crypto newsletter Citation Needed. Magic Eden, an established cryptocurrency marketplace, said on the website that it had partnered with Trump’s official digital coin team to create the wallet
Peers vote to defy government over copyright threat from AI
Defiant peers have delivered an ultimatum to the government – calling on it to offer artists copyright protection against artificial intelligence companies or risk losing a key piece of legislation.The government suffered a fifth defeat in the House of Lords over controversial plans to allow the AI companies to train their models using copyrighted material.Peers voted by 221 to 116 on Wednesday to insist on an amendment to force AI companies to be transparent about what material they use to train their models.Speaking at an awards event after the vote, Elton John said copyright protection was an “existential issue” for artists and urged the government “to do the right thing”.He added: “We will not let the government forget their promise to support our creative industries
BBC and Sky bosses criticise plans to let AI firms use copyrighted material
The BBC director general and the boss of Sky have criticised proposals to let tech firms use copyright-protected work without permission, as the government promised that artificial intelligence legislation will not destroy the £125bn creative sector.The creative industry has said that original proposals published in a consultation in February to give AI companies access to creative works unless the copyright holder opts out would “scrape the value” out of the sector.Dana Strong, the group chief executive of Sky, compared the proposal to its own battles against TV piracy and said individuals and small companies would not have the experience and financial resources to protect their intellectual property.“Sky is one of the leading forces in trying to fight against piracy,” she said, speaking at the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms conference.“As I look ahead to artificial intelligence, protecting copyright is a very big issue, and I think some of the consequences of the opt-out are impossible to police
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