nuclear-news

AUDIO  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904292504576484133479927502.html  Nuclear Waste Piles Up—in Budget Deficit. WSJ, By MARK MAREMONT, 14 Aug 11

A decades-old promise to dispose of the waste has become another unfunded liability, starting with a $25 billion ratepayer fund gone astray and $16 billion or more in estimated legal judgments to compensate utilities for their storage expenses. The costs of the ultimate disposal project also are sure to rise, with no plan in sight to replace the now-canceled plan to entomb the waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.

In a draft report issued late last month, a presidential panel recommended overhauling the waste-disposal project to make it more self-financing. But that would increase the federal budget deficit, a long shot in light of current deficit politics. The Obama administration has requested no funding for the disposal program in its fiscal 2012 budget, officials say……

When the federal government took responsibility for nuclear-waste disposal three decades ago, taxpayers weren’t supposed to be on the hook. Under a “polluter pays” doctrine, the 1982 law required nuclear utilities to shoulder the cost through an annual fee paid to the federal government. The fee was to be deposited in a newly created Nuclear Waste Fund that the U.S. Department of Energy could tap to fund the storage project.

The fee, which ultimately comes from nuclear-electricity customers as a surcharge of 1/10th of a cent per kilowatt hour, now amounts to about $750 million a year. Counting past expenditures and interest earned, the fund’s balance is about $25 billion.

But that cash doesn’t really exist. Since the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, Congress and successive administrations have changed the plan so that the fees paid by utilities essentially are treated like taxes and go into the government’s general coffers…….

The draft report issued July 29 by the panel, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, said the U.S. nuclear-waste disposal program had “all but broken down” and suggested a series of fixes. One recommendation was an overhaul of what it called the “dysfunctional” Nuclear Waste Fund arrangement.

The panel was formed last year by President Barack Obama, after the administration’s decision to halt the Yucca Mountain project. The panel includes former elected officials from both major parties, along with academic experts and representatives of industry and labor……

Legal challenges to the Yucca decision are pending. The Energy Department in 2008 estimated that building the Yucca Mountain facility and then transferring waste to it would cost $83 billion in 2007 dollars, most of it over a six-decade span, on top of the $13.5 billion already spent.If the plan is dead and the government has to find a new site, the ultimate cost of disposal almost certainly will rise.

Beyond disposal costs, taxpayers are also potentially liable for damages suffered by the public from a nuclear accident, including those stemming from the spent fuel stored at commercial power plant sites. Under a 1950s law, plant operators currently must carry $375 million of liability insurance for each reactor, after which an industry insurance plan would take over, covering damages up to $12 billion. Any personal injury or property damages in excess of that would be borne by the federal government….

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904292504576484133479927502.html