Last month two major court decisions were handed down that
have significant impact on the overall economics of nuclear power. Unfortunately, this was not picked up by the
mainstream news media, nor has it been fully vetted by the anti-nuclear
community.
Here is some background, beginning with the 1982 Nuclear
Policy Act signed by Ronald Reagan. It
said that beginning in 1998, the Federal Government (DOE) would take possession
and responsibility for all high-level spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants,
and will place it in a permanent geologic repository. Also, the utilities would contribute 1 mil ($0.001) per
kilowatt/hour of nuclear generated electricity into the Nuclear Waste Fund, to
pay for the building and operation of the repository. To date, about $30 billion has been collected from nuclear
utility customers for the fund.
Yucca Mountain was chosen in 1988 as the preferred site, and
work began characterizing the mountain.
The law said that the geology alone should provide the isolation of
the spent fuel from the environment for a minimum of 10,000 years. In the mid-90’s, it was determined that the
natural environmental conditions in the repository would interact with the heat
and radiation from the fuel, and would destabilize the integrity of the storage
canisters. The repository design was
then modified to allow the placement of some sort of metal “drip shields” to
protect the canisters. That was the
first major problem…a metal that would avoid corrosion for 10,000 years? After 20 years of scientific study, and
about $14 billion from the fund, the inevitable “uncertainty” of Yucca Mountain
to meet the isolation requirement came to light (NRC Chairwoman Alison
MacFalane’s “Uncertainty Underground”), and after much legal and scientific jostling
between DOE, EPA, NRC, and the state of Nevada, work was halted in 2006, and
finally abandoned by President Obama in 2009.
The ultimate question of whether Yucca Mountain can serve as our
repository, or whether there is anyplace else where we can technologically
isolate hot, radioactive material for tens of thousands of years must be
answered by science, technology, and
social morality, and not by politics.
So, what were the two court decisions? The first dealt with DOE’s responsibility
for spent fuel after the 1998 deadline was not met. It is costing utilities somewhere between $10-15 million per year
to store and safeguard the high-level waste, whether it is pools or dry cask
storage. Utilities have sued DOE saying
that they should be reimbursed for this cost, since by law, DOE owns the fuel
and should take care of it. In several
cases over the years, the courts have agreed.
Last month they granted Maine Yankee $35.7 million in addition to $81.7
million granted earlier in the year, for storage fees (total $117.4 million)
from 1998 to 2008. A third claim is in
for 2009-12, and more claims later for 2013 to ????? “Two other New England
power plants – Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. and Yankee Atomic Electric
Co. of Rowe, Mass. – also were awarded damages this week in the amounts of
$126.3 million and $73.3 million, respectively.” More utilities are expected to follow suit. In other words, the
taxpayers are going to pay these costs and not the ratepayers who
benefited from the cheap nuclear generated electricity.(1)(2)
There are major points to be gleaned from these
decisions. First, 104 nuclear power
plants in the US…storage costs of $10 million/year/each…1998 to 2013…$15
billion+/- owed to the utilities by the US taxpayers???? What about 2014 to ???? We will eventually have to move all the fuel
rods into dry cask storage…6000 casks at $10 million each to construct and
load. Another $60 billion????
A repository, even if we started now, wouldn’t be ready for
at least another twenty years (nuclear industry best “estimate”.) Nuclear power was supposed to be cheap, and
pay for itself. Not true! So we have a 20 year old living in Oregon, and lucky
enough to have a job, a 45 year old living in Idaho, and all the
rest of the 100% Americans paying taxes that are going to pay for the storage of spent nuclear fuel
at the long gone Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Oregon, shuttered in 1993, which
produced “cheap” electricity for a few, for only 15 years. Fair??? You’d think the fiscal conservatives
would be all over this. A tax, by any
other name, is still a tax. Somebody has to pay. The argument that tax dollars
shouldn’t be used to help pay for health insurance or social security falls
very short when in actuality, tax dollars are being used to pay the nuclear industry’s
bad investments and debts.
The second court decision handed yet another economic blow
to the US taxpayer. The Nuclear Waste
fund was collecting some $750 million per year earmarked for permanent storage
in a repository. Out of the $30 billion
collected so far (including interest earned), about half has already been spent
on a dry hole (Yucca Mountain.) The US
Court of Appeals just ruled that DOE should stop collecting that fee. “The appeals court panel said the Energy
Department failed to come up with an adequate evaluation for the waste fee…the
agency’s assessment of disposal costs was “so large as to be absolutely useless
to be used as an analytic technique”… Judge Silberman wrote in the seven-page
decision that the department’s presentation reminded the court of a line from
the musical “Chicago,” which says, “Give them the old razzle dazzle.”
(3)(4)
The fact of the matter here is that the remaining $15
billion in the fund is a mere pittance in what it will/would cost to develop a
repository. When Yucca Mountain was
cancelled, the nuclear industry “estimate” for construction and operation
beginning in 2030 was $95 billion.
What’s that cost going to be 30, 40, ??? years from now. Again, the US taxpayer will be held
responsible to pay the nuclear bill.
The Baby Boomers and those alive over the past 40 years have benefited
from “cheap” nuclear electricity, only because they have deferred the
true costs onto many, many generations of taxpayers in the future.
What will the final price of spent fuel management be over
the next 50…100 years? $200
billion? $500 billion? Add to this the cost of decommissioning the
100 reactors ($2 billion + each at
today’s estimates) and the cost of cleaning up all the other components of the
nuclear industry (uranium mine tailings, enrichment plants, fuel fabrication
plants, etc, etc,) and we’re looking at a trillion dollars or more. This is the “back-end” costs that very few
people really understand, or are talking about. The industry is too busy wanting to build even more plants, and
pushing the continued lie that nuclear power is cheap, safe, clean, and our
only energy salvation.
Once again, we’ve been had, and by the very same people who
stand up and spout out that this type of “socialist” thing is fiscally
unacceptable, and not fair to our children and grandchildren. Money turns a blind eye! Open your eyes and follow it. This whole
waste issue is just beginning to come to light. It will be interesting to see how the industry justifies its
position.
- http://www.kjonline.com/news/Court_orders__235M_payment_for_nuclear_waste_storage.html
- http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/2013/11/15/court-orders-payment-for-nuke-waste-storage/wpoLINQZR0ZzklYARmp5iM/story.html
- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-20/nuclear-power-s-750-million-reprieve-doesn-t-end-dilemma.html
- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-20/nuclear-power-s-750-million-reprieve-doesn-t-end-dilemma.html
