( By Carrington Dillon ) [Approx. Read Time: 1.5 minutes]
It is good to see Energy Utilities push back against the Federal Government after their decision to suspend development of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Almost $30 Billion from ratepayers like you and I have been paid to the Federal Government by Utilities with the promise of completing Yucca Mountain. Now the Utilities are looking to get that money back to ratepayers and themselves. See this article from Bloomberg on the issue.
“U.S. nuclear utilities say they shouldn’t have to pay an estimated $769 million this year toward a waste repository since the U.S. is abandoning the Yucca Mountain site and hasn’t settled on another disposal plan.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based group representing owners of all 104 operating U.S. reactors, sent a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu today asking for the payments to be suspended. About $29.6 billion in fees and interest has gone into the nuclear fund as of the end of 2008. Utilities pay into the fund via a surcharge on electricity produced by nuclear power.
President Barack Obama announced earlier this year in budget documents that the U.S. would no longer seek to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Chu has proposed a panel to make recommendations on a plan for waste disposal…
Nuclear Energy Institute President Marvin Fertel said in his letter to the secretary that the fund has “more than enough money” to cover the president’s $197 million request for Yucca Mountain’s 2010 budget.”
We’ll see what comes of this.
There are two important aspects of the NEI letter requesting the suspension of payments to the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) that I feel should not be overlooked. First, the yearly interest alone on the current ~$30 billion of our money in the NWF is about $900 million. This interest alone dwarfs the amount that is slated to be wasted in yet another DOE study. Second, in the NEI letter President Fertel made a basis for his request the fact that there is now no plan for a final repository and, thus, there is no way to access the adequacy of the tax we pay into the NWF. I think this latter point is shear genius on the part of the NEI in that it blatantly puts the current presidential administration under the spotlight of the nuclear waste issue.