How well the energy industry can deal with this challenge will depend to a large extent on how well they can develop and adopt a holistic pathway to close ‘The Decommissioning Gap’.
The traditional perspective on decommissioning is best exemplified by two extremes:
In the nuclear industry, nuclear sites often have high potential residual value in the national / regional energy system (location, infrastructure and logistics) but their decommissioning projects are relatively long, expensive and technically challenging that require substantial resources, locally and in the general energy supply chain. At the same time, their decommissioning liabilities are generally well defined and fully or partially pre-funded.
