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In addition, the Minneapolis-based utility settled another lawsuit over storage costs from 2009 through 2013. Those costs are uncertain, but the company estimates they will total about $100 million more. Federal reimbursement from that settlement will paid over several years, Wilensky said.

Xcel has 1,300 tons of radioactive waste at its reactors near Red Wing and Monticello, Minn. Nearly half of the spent fuel is in casks designed for decades of storage, and the rest is in water-filled pools inside the plants……

Dispute over 1982 law

The dispute arose because of a law Congress passed in 1982 that required the Department of Energy (DOE) to begin removing spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste created by utilities like Xcel. To pay for the program, the statute created the Nuclear Waste Fund, and the utilities began making quarterly payments into it in 1983.

The DOE signed contracts to remove the spent fuel by Jan. 31, 1998, but has failed to do so. That prompted 74 breach-of-contract lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, according to Michael Hertz, deputy assistant attorney general, who addressed the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future in February.

A proposed permanent storage site for U.S. nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was dropped from consideration last year by the Obama administration. The blue ribbon commission has been studying what to do next……..

U.S. utilities were seeking at least $6.4 billion in storage repayments, and the government had spent about $167 million defending the lawsuits, Hertz told the commission in February. DOE has reached settlements involving 44 reactors in addition to the three operated by Xcel, Wilensky said.

In 2007, Xcel won a judgment of $116 million in its first lawsuit, but the government appealed. Meanwhile, decisions in three appellate courts led the company to believe it would be difficult to sustain that award, Wilensky said. The company’s second lawsuit was to go to trial later this month…….http://www.startribune.com/business/125250519.html