Would the Mox plant make money?
Greenpeace argues there is insufficient evidence the plant will attract enough customers, and the plant will never pay for itself. Consultants say the plant’s operation will be worth 150m to the UK over its lifetime, but Greenpeace says this profit is distorted because the huge cost of building the plant has already been written off. Also, it says, BNFL claims that economic powers such as Japan – a BNFL customer since the 1960s – will play a major role in making the plant a success do not stand up to examination. Greenpeace says Japan has an effective moratorium on orders from Sellafield following last year’s falsification incident. BNFL counters by saying it has customers who already use its reprocessing facilities that want Mox fuel. It says it has a bulging order book. It also says the plant will directly support more than 300 jobs and indirectly benefit hundreds more in a part of west Cumbria highly dependant on BNFL for jobs. Local unions have already given their backing to the pl
