Price Tag for Nuclear Waste Dump (Yucca Mountain $90 billion)

[jpak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/washington/16brfs-PRICETAGFORN_BRF.html?ref=us

Opening and operating the nation’s first nuclear waste dump will cost more than $90 billion, an Energy Department official said. The price was $58 billion in 2001, the last time the administration released an estimate for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The estimate includes $9 billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump is sealed forever...(snip)

<noot much more>

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. And then there will be the cost of cleaning up if glow trains derail.

[jpak]

2. but..but...but...the gov't sez the glo-trains are "safe" - just like atmospheric nuclear tests in NV

:evilgrin:

:hi:

[Nederland]

3. Question

What percentage of that cost is lawyer fees needed to fight off all the legal challenges? Just curious...

[jpak]

4. That's a stupid question

The real question is why the state of Nevada should be FORCED AGAINST ITS WILL to accept the nation's spent nuclear fuel when Nevada never operated a nuclear power plant within its borders at any time in its history.

and an even better question is why US taxpayers - not the nuclear industry - should pay for any of this AT ALL...

[Nederland]

5. That's a matter of opinion

I'd say both questions are worth asking.

I'm always leary of people that refuse to answer a question because they think its stupid. Even if it's stupid, what's the harm in answering? It's a mindset that reminds me of President Bush to be honest.

[jpak]

7. Use The Google and answer us your question - knock yourself out

The only pending multi-billion dollar lawsuit(s) involving spent nuclear fuel were filed by the nuclear industry against US taxpayers for not "taking care" of the spent fuel *they* created and *made* money on...

Government must pay for nuclear-waste-storage delay

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5350/is_199901/ai_n21433879

The U.S. Supreme Court on November 30 let stand a ruling that allows nuclear power plants to sue the government for failing to accept their spent fuel for storage by the February 1, 1998, deadline set in a 1982 law. Three plants have already won over $250 million in damages and eight others have filed claims ranging from $100 million to $1.5 billion. With the rest of the industry expected to follow suit, an industry think tank predicts the total federal liability could reach as much as $50 billion.

Disposal of the 30,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel piling up at various nuclear power plants nationwide is considered the largest obstacle to expanded use of nuclear energy. Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (P.L. 97-425), the Department of Energy (DOE) was to begin removing high-level waste generated and stored by commercial reactors by February 1, 1998. Many utilities are struggling to extend their on-site storage capacity and some may be forced to shut down as they run out of space. But, after 16 years, DOE is still not prepared to begin storing the fuel.

While Congress directed DOE in 1987 to focus on burying the nation's spent fuel at a permanent storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada (P.L. 100-203), the plan is very controversial and far behind schedule. Frustrated by the broken federal promise and eager to reduce their costs and liabilities, utilities are suing the government for breach of contract. Although DOE says it is working as fast as it can on a permanent site, the courts convinced the delays were avoidable-thus far are siding with the companies. While the Supreme Court ruling clears the way for plants that relied on the 1998 deadline to seek monetary damages, it does not force DOE to begin its waste collection until it finds a permanent repository.

DOE maintains that it is irresponsible to rush a plan that could have consequences for thousands of years. The Yucca Mountain permanent storage site-a deep geologic repository located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas-will not be ready before 2010, even though nuclear plants have paid nearly $15 billion in fees toward a federal cleanup fund to facilitate disposal.

<more>

The total amount in lawsuits pending is currently $56 billion.

So in the fucked up world of nuclear logic - nebulous make-believe law suits against Yucca Mountain cost billions (not)

But it's OK for the taxpayers to pay the nuclear industry $56 billion to settle their *real* lawsuits against the DOE and then have taxpayers pay another $90 billion to get rid of *their* spent fuel.

lalalalalalala

[bananas]

8. It's negligible - one tenth of a percent.

"Until then, the government will have to pay utilities to compensate them for the costs of keeping the waste on site. As of the end of last year, the U.S. had paid out $290 million and spent almost $100 million in legal fees."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91121903

$100M/$90B = 1.1/1000 = 0.11%

[Nederland]

11. Thank you

I appreciate the answer.

[bbinacan]

6. Even if the nuclear industry

paid for it, they's just pass the cost down to the consumer.

[NNadir]

9. You mean less than 2 billion dollars per year. Can you dispose of your electronic waste

on a national scale for that much money?

You couldn't care less about electronic waste and so come here pushing it all the time?

How about 50 years worth of dangerous fossil fuel waste?

Could your little cult manage that for 90 billion dollars?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

Nuclear power has functioned on an exajoule scale for more than 4 decades. Thus the expenditure is trivial - unless you are as intellectually dishonest as a carny barker - and attempt to view the subject in isolation.

You have done all you could in your yuppie power to make the dollar worthless, and now that it is <em>worthless</em> you come here to express your glee.

In fact, dumbell, there is no evidence that if any of your yuppie toys ever got to an exajoule scale - which has not happened in the years and years and years and years of drooling dribble from the "renewables will save us" cults in this space, there is no evidence that you would know what to do with the wastes from one exajoule worth of that crap for any amount of money.

But you ignore that fact, because the root of the word "ignore" is the same as the root of the word "ignorance."

Ignorance kills.

Let me tell you something dipshit, while you and your yuppie friends were busy making an electronic space heater in a bathroom to expensive for fixed income citizens - about whom you couldn't care less - nuclear fuel was evolving into one of the most precious commodities on earth.

There will be no such thing as disposal. It's not necessary.

Basically, the anti-nuke cults exist to paralyze humanity - just as other forms of ignorance do - but in this case, by helping to keep used nuclear fuel above ground and available, the anti-nuke cult may have unintentionally done the only useful thing they have done in their pathetic lives of ignorance and delusion.

[jpak]

10. If it's so damned cheap the nuclear industry can pay for it

FYI = 240 GW of existing renewable "toys" are producing exajoules of energy today.

P.S. you really need professional help...

[ladjf]

12. Jpak, great rebuttal. Don't take any crap off of Captain Exajoules.