Still don’t think giving tax breaks to the Exelons1 of the world to build nuclear plants is the answer to our energy woes.
Even if no new reactors are built, getting rid of the country’s nuclear waste will cost $96.2 billion and require a major expansion of the planned Nevada waste dump beyond limits imposed by Congress, the Energy Department said. The government now says the Yucca Mountain project, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will cost $38.7 billion more than was anticipated in 2001, when the department estimated the life cycle cost of the program at $57.5 billion.
[From High Cost Seen on Nuclear Dump ]
Oh, what’s a few billion between lobbyist friends. Or $38,700,000,000 in this case.
The estimates cover waste only from existing reactors and from the military.
And if we don’t figure out how to dispose of the waste safely, we’ll regret it eventually. Dumping the entire region’s toxic waste under a mountain isn’t really a solution, just a cover-up.
Footnotes:- our local power company, and a large operator of nuclear plants [↩]