Posted on 05/16/2014 5:31:16 AM PDT by thackney
…The Energy Department will stop charging the fee by court order on Friday. The amount is only a small percentage of most customers’ bills, but it adds up to $750 million a year. The fund now holds $37 billion.
The money was collected to build a long-term disposal site for the highly radioactive nuclear waste generated by the nation’s nuclear power plants that is, by law, the federal government’s responsibility. …Don’t expect a refund, however. The latest Energy Department strategy, laid out in a report last year, is to have a site designed by 2042 and built by 2048 using the money in the fund.
…a typical residential customer pays $2 a year into the fund.
…In 2002 Congress approved Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a site for a national nuclear waste dump and $9.5 billion was withdrawn from the fund to develop the project, according to the Government Accountability Office. But the project has been criticized as inadequate and flawed and is fiercely opposed by Nevadans. President Obama, fulfilling a campaign promise, cut funding for the program, withdrew its license application, and dismantled the office that was working on it.
”It’s a victory for customers,” White said of the end of the fee collection. “But it’s bittersweet because we’d still rather see a (nuclear waste) site.”
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
2042? Nearly 100 years?
As I understand it, yes to all of that. And still has $37 billion left.
. “The latest Energy Department strategy, laid out in a report last year, is to have a site designed by 2042 and built by 2048 using the money in the fund.”
They will then determine the strategy “woefully underfunded” and will re-instate the fee x ten.
:-) Stay FRee, BW1.
Encase the waste in round glass barrels (there is plenty of sand to make the glass) and sink them in the deep ocean. JMHO
Why not reprocess the waste? Doesn’t France do that?
France, Japan, Russia...
But that would make sense.
It is not safer if they are not spending the money or do not need the money. Don’t equate to solving a problem; like thinking more money for education means more education.
I don’t see what the issue with Yucca Mtn is. The waste has to go somewhere. Storing it properly will greatly reduce the risk of an accident elsewhere.
Wherever they try to put it the anti-nuke people will whip up hysteria among the local population.
huh
Of course just spending money doesn’t make anything safer. Making a proper storage facility would increase safety and control of the waste.
The only thing that makes it most ideal is the relative absence of people next door...
We went over this in the 70s when I was in grad school, before Three Mile Island and a career track change.
Every long term disposal concept has its flaws.
The trick is to put it someplace where people and the waste aren't going to be in contact inadvertently in 10,000 years or so. When you consider climate changes in the last 10K years, people movements, and language changes, we really don't know what the next 10K years will bring in terms of technology, culture, behaviour, or whether there will be technical progression or regression.
That's a lot to plan for on the human end, but climate could change as well if there is an new Ice Age, if there are significant tectonic events, or other factors.
So the dry climate of today could be the rain forest of 3000 years from now. While we'll be long gone, the effects on the residents then might not be so ideal.
That is our responsibility, we made the mess and now we need to figure out how to safely inter it.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a federal law, requires the DOE to build and operate a national repository for used fuel. It is funded by the fees paid by nuclear generators (not direct tax dollars, although in the end, like everything, consumers pay the bill). The NWPA is a law still on the books, but Obama and his DOE are willfully ignoring it. Thus, they are violating federal law, once again circumventing the will of Congress to veto a policy they don't like. Now, I know what would happen to me or anyone here if we willfully violated a federal law. They'd come after us and lock us up and throw away the key. But these scumbags just skate away. Typical.
Now check into phone & utility “fees”...
The neutrons in the waste act like a sand blasting operation against the glass. It is reduced to a fine talcum powder mixed with the remaining waste.
The ocean is getting filled with plenty of waste from Fukushima daily. 300 tons of water washing over the cores that melted below the reactor containment vessels.
The nice folks in Carlsbad, NM at the WIPP facility invited the "customers" to send much high level waste than was originally agreed to the site. They have caverns 2000 feet below ground level in salt formations. The salt and bacteria disintegrated barrels with plutonium and americium in less than 5 years. There was an explosion on Feb 14, 2014 that filled the facility with plutonium and americium contaminants and blew out the air vents to contaminate the surrounding town. And for more fun, the salt formation lies above a layer of brine pressurized from nearby fracking operations. Brine + salt formation = nuclear waste in solution and passing into the water table.
WIPP will be closed for years and the crap that was being packaged to transport to WIPP will have to stay at the location of origin. The locations of origin don't really have a safe means of storage. Perhaps we can stop making more of this crap.
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