The official body charged with the clean up of Britain's nuclear sites today revealed that the estimated costs for dealing with the country's radioactive legacy has soared again. The Nuclear Decomissioning Authority (NDA) now says that there could be an additional £14bn of necessary expenditure, taking the total to near £70bn.

That is not millions, that is 70 billions, 70 thousand million pounds. And that is just for the clean up and decommissioning costs, never mind all the money that was (and is still being) ploughed into nuclear research and development. And then there was the cost of building the reactors in the first place. Whichever way you look at it, this has got to be a crazy way of generating power. It's especially crazy if you are a taxpayer, as most of that £70bn will be paid by you.

As ever, with the nuclear costs saga, this is not the end.

.. Friends of the Earth recently published energy scenarios that can deliver up to 70% carbon dioxide emissions reductions from the electricity sector and without recourse to new nuclear power. We have the cutting edge technological base to do this, we have the entrepreneurs and companies and we have outstanding opportunities because of our islands are so rich in renewable energy sources. The investment resources needed to get this moving, however, have until now been largely sucked up by the outdated nuclear industry.

Guardian