Of links and legacies

This chapter considers the primarily non-technical issues of timing, cost, policies, and constraints as they apply to decommissioning across a whole range of facilities, thereby setting the issue of nuclear decommissioning in a wider context. A number of factors explain why the generic issues of decommissioning are likely to become more generally prominent during the 1990s and gain greater attention from the media and the public than they have hitherto. Nuclear decommissioning is almost certain to become a more prominent issue during the 1990s, and this is likely to result in more extensive debate about decommissioning in general. Several factors can be identified which influence scale and magnitude of the costs of decommissioning. For facilities at the top of learning curve, there can be considerable uncertainty about the costs associated with different standards or stages of decommissioning. For some facilities, decommissioning can proceed to a certain stage and no further, limited by powers under existing regulations or by physical constraints.