Expense of storing nuclear waste soars

[bananas]

http://www.twincities.com/ci_8343980?source=rss

Expense of storing nuclear waste soars
Taxpayers to bear billions in penalties
BY MATTHEW L. WALD
New York Times
Article Last Updated: 02/23/2008 03:14:00 AM CST

WASHINGTON — Forgotten but not gone, the waste from more than 100 nuclear reactors the federal government was supposed to start accepting for burial 10 years ago still is at the reactor sites, at least 20 years behind schedule. But it is making itself felt in the federal budget.

With court orders and settlements, the federal government already has paid the utilities $342 million, but is virtually certain to pay a total of at least $7 billion in the next few years and probably more than $11 billion, government officials said. The industry said the total could reach $35 billion.

The payments come from an obscure and poorly understood government account that requires no new congressional appropriations, and will balloon in size, experts said.

The payments are due because the reactor owners were all required to sign contracts with the Energy Department in the early 1980s, with the government promising to dispose of the waste for a fee of a tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour. It was supposed to begin taking away the fuel in the then far-off year of 1998.

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[ixion]

1. and if we'd spent that money on renewable energy sources, rather than toxic nuclear waste

we'd be in much better situation right now.

But hey, that would have taken some ethics and some foresight, neither of which are traits shown by our government.

[NNadir]

2. That is nonsense. Three hundred and forty million worth of solar toys

would not produce 1) The ability to dispose of the electronic waste generated for 50 years of production.

2) As much energy as 1 nuclear reactor.

This money was paid by the utilities from actual costs.

Fundie anti-nukes, know no science, nothing about risk, life cycle analysis, safety, or especially economics.

There is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke on this site who give's a rat's ass about the dangers and costs of disposing of dangerous fossil fuel waste.

Instead they rely entirely on arbitrary selective attention, thus sentencing millions of people worldwide to death each year.

To death?

Why yes, of course. Ignorance kill?

[ixion]

3. I AM concerned about the disposal of nuclear waste. It's a problem no one wants to deal with, yet

we continue to create more of the stuff. Your premise is untenable. If this money had gone into not only solar 'toys' :eyes: but also in things like geo-thermal and wind, and R/D on more efficient appliances that consume electricity, we'd be much further along than we are now, and not staring at miles upon miles of toxic waste with a 50,000 year half-life.

Hey, if you love nuclear energy so much, and are so concerned, why don't YOU take the waste into your own house. I want nothing to do with it.

When nuclear energy became fashionable in the 70's, I remember utility companies crowing about how the price of energy was going to be next to nothing. Instead, energy prices have sky-rocketed over the years, and so has the amount of waste produced, not to mention Big Energy's bank account.

So if you want to be flip about nuclear energy waste disposal, you might try directing it at the people who created the problem, rather than the people who are trying to find a solution.