nuclear-news

Nuclear cleanup to cost billions — Page 1 — Times Union – Albany NY

Nuclear cleanup to cost billions
State-funded study puts almost $10 billion price on effort at West Valley TimesUnion.com By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer December 3, 2008While it will cost taxpayers billions to clean out dangerous radioactive waste from a defunct nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, storing it there would cost billions more over the centuries — and risk contamination of Lake Erie.
That was the conclusion of a state-funded report on the 3,300-acre West Valley nuclear site, closed since the early 1970s and once the nation’s only commercial center for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

Released Tuesday, the report comes during a growing national debate about stepping up nuclear power as a way to cut the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Critics continue to question the fate of spent fuel, which is dangerous for thousands of years.he report by Cambridge-based Synapse Energy Economics claimed it will cost nearly $10 billion to clean radioactive waste from West Valley over the next 60 years and ship it to a federal dump that does not exist yet.

But leaving the waste where it is — about 30 miles from Buffalo— would cost up to $13 billion to keep contained over the next 1,000 years. The report said the task could be technologically difficult in an area prone to erosion. It could cost up to $27 billion if radiation escapes the area a century from now and gets into creeks that flow into Lake Erie, endangering the drinking water supply.

Nuclear cleanup to cost billions — Page 1 — Times Union – Albany NY

December 4, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs