Thursday, August 7, 2008
News Yucca Mountain, nuke waste storehouse, continues rise in cost
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 2:44 PM
The cost of building nuclear reactors, such as the two new ones Southern Co. has proposed at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, is high. Turns out storing the spent fuel generated from the power generators at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will be expensive as well.
From E&E News (subscription required):
DOE has spent $13.5 billion since 1983, and figures to spend $54.8 billion on construction, operation and decommissioning of the [Yucca Mountain] repository; $19.5 billion for transporting the waste — including building the canisters for holding waste; and $8.4 billion for other program activities.The report notes that the expenses were based on a repository opening date of 2017 — a best possible opening date that Sproat has already said is no longer possible due to budget constraints, which have pushed it to 2020. The lifecycle estimate also does not include the at least $11 billion in liability expenses DOE expects for breaking its contract with utilities to begin taking away the spent nuclear fuel in 1998.
Another possible cost increase could come from the more than 30 planned new nuclear reactors, which were not included in the estimate. Sproat said trying to estimate costs for waste from the new reactors would be speculative and would no longer provide “an apples to apples” comparison with the 2001 report….
(Hat tip to the always informative Joe Romm at ClimateProgress)
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