French energy minister Ségolène Royal has signed a decree setting the ‘reference cost’ of a national repository for the disposal of high- and intermediate-level waste at €25 billion ($27 billion). The parties involved in the project had earlier estimated the cost at between €20 billion and €39 billion. France plans to construct the Centre Industriel de Stockage Géologique (Cigéo) repository – an underground system of disposal tunnels – in a natural layer of clay near Bure, to the east of Paris in the Meuse/Haute Marne area. The facility is to be financed by radioactive waste generators – EDF, Areva and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) – and managed by waste management agency Andra. In 2005, Andra estimated the cost of the facility at between €13.5 and €16.5 billion ($14.6 and $17.9 billion). However, in 2009 it re-estimated the cost at around €36 billion ($39 billion).
World Nuclear News 18th Jan 2016 read more »