building an interim site would be politically and
economically unwise.
That economic reference, says Nevada's Loux,
cloaks a real dilemma faced by the nuclear industry: if
it pursues construction of an interim facility, there
probably won't be enough federal funds to bring a
permanent repository on-line.
"Even though ... rate payers... have been
contributing into a fund that the federal government
manages that pays for all of this," he told Electric
Nevada, "it's clear that with the budget caps
that Congress and the administration are imposing on each
other, to try and balance the budget in 2002," no
more than about $400 million would be available annually.
That sum is far below what is needed to do the
three things the nuclear industry is asking, said Loux.
Not only do the utilities want siting and construction of
an interim storage facility, plus continued study and
work on a permanent repository, but industry legal action
could make the government soon start paying out some of
the money for "at-reactor" on-site storage --
back to the utilities themselves.
"In some sense, the utilities' argument
that the DOE take title and take it now, hurts them in
the long run," said Loux, "in that there
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are some estimates the
DOE could have to shell out as much as $300 million a
year for at-reactor storage costs, leaving only a $100
million left for a repository and/or interim storage
program -- if in fact the Congress orders one.
"So I think what she's telling them is,
'If you're continuing to push for interim storage, you're
really hurting this program in the long run, in that
there's not enough federal monies available under the
budget to do it all.'"
Loux disputed O'Leary's estimate that Yucca
Mountain could be receiving and storing spent nuclear
fuel by 2010.
"I think most observers ...would disagree
with her about the percent likelihood that Yucca Mountain
will work out. But moreover, most people would agree that
the time scale is more like 2020 to 2025, under ideal
circumstances -- simply because no dates in the Nuclear
Waste Policy program have been met to date, and most of
them have been deferred for decades. The GAO [Government
Accounting Office] predicts somewhere like 2020 under
optimistic circumstances."
Even should the Department of Energy meet its
best estimates, said Loux, the first year that the Yucca
Mountain site could even be declared suitable for
development
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