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Stuck with decades-worth of spent nuclear fuel? Sue!
July 10th, 2009, 3:00 am · 10 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
Sometimes a breach of contract leaves you with an unfinished bathroom or a bum repair job on your car. But when you get stuck with nearly 30-years-worth of highly radioactive, spent nuclear fuel, you’re in an unusual quandary.
Yet every commercial nuclear power plant in America finds itself in precisely this position, including our very own San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, operated by Southern California Edison. SCE is suing the federal government for $146.5 million - essentially what it cost to store said highly radioactive, spent nuclear fuel through 2005. (Expect to see more claims for post-2005 nuke storage bills in the future.)
Most every nuclear plant operator in America is suing as well. It could cost the federal government more than $1 billion by the time it’s all done.
WHITHER YUCCA MOUNTAIN?
Back in the ’60s and ’70s, nuclear power was the future. To encourage its development, the federal government passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, promising to accept spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste from commercial plants by Jan. 31., 1998. In return, the plants would make quarterly payments into a Nuclear Waste Fund.
SoCal Edison signed its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy in 1983. Since then, it has paid about $15 million per year into the fund - for a total of $373 million by the end of 2005.
Who provides that money? You, the ratepayers. And what did that money buy? Largely, squat. It quickly became apparent that the feds weren’t going to have a nuclear waste disposal facility ready by 1998…or 2008…or perhaps even 2018. Which left SoCal Edison and all the other power plant operators scrambling.
SoCal Edison’s pretrial brief tells a fascinating story about the machinations behind trying to accommodate all that spent fuel over the years (read it here: pretrial-brief), but suffice to say it involved shipping waste across the country for reprocessing (which never happened); shifting old waste from one reactor pool to another reactor pool to make space; erecting reinforced concrete dry storage canisters; and more.
The trial - Southern California Edison Company v. United States of America - was heard in April. SoCal Edison awaits the court’s decision. And we at The Watchdog are left wondering: Why the heck do we do it this way anyway? Why don’t we recycle spent nuclear fuel as they do in France, which cuts down enormously on what you’d have to stick in a place like Yucca Mountain? If it’s good for the bottle, and good for the can, shouldn’t it be good for the nuclear fuel, too?
We’ll get back to you next week with more on that riddle.
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We need Nuclear power if we are ever going to be energy independent. Wind mills and solar energy is good, but it only accounts for 1% of our energy needs. Our current president wants us to check the pressure in our car tires and insulate our homes, which is good, but its only a feel good solution.
I suggest we send engineers to France to help us recycle spent fuel, but please no Senate junkets. We need people that are trained in the field. Second I would get Congress off its you know whats and find a permanent storage location. We need at least 40 new Nuclear power stations now, if we really want to be energy independent.
i firmly agree . nuclear energy is our best solution .
I agree with Bob Holt. “Spent” fuel is just polluted fuel and is recyclable. We were ahead of the world in nuclear production in the 1960s until we allowed the the Neo-Luddites to make energy decisions. Nuclear power will help us become energy independent and those that fall for the argument that CO2 is causing climate change can stop worrying too.
The French exercise a closed cycle system, using a Phoenix breeder reactor to recycle spent fuel into new fuel. With such a system, we could be assured of reliable electrical power with no reliance on fossil fuels. Thus no carbon emissions, no strip mining, no reliance on foreign oil, and so forth.
It’s such a no-brainer, but three-mile island and Chernobyl put such a fear into people and played right into the hands of the anti-nucs.
Killing Yucca mountain was either a political move by our vice-pres as a favor to his state, or a responsible end to a wasteful and endless boondoggle. In any case, a careful re-examination of the issue of disposal has to be undertaken. We’ll still have hot waste, even if we recycle.
The government welched on the deal, so why not sue to get the money back? Makes sense to me.
From what I understand, spent rods aren’t recycled because it’s too expensive. It’s cheaper to mine uranium than to recycle the rods. Besides, I’ve seen how much space San O’s storage facility occupies and it’s not much. That’s not to say that Edison shouldn’t go after its money though. Too bad Yucca mountain can’t be used for storage. I believe nuclear is the right path to take so the storage problem is something that’s gonna have to be figured out. Perhaps when a new administration is voted in, Yucca will open up?
Obviously not a good power source.
It’s good enough to run your computer…
Pull the plug on that toxic waste dump!
Send the spent fuel to the US Capitol building… if they have enough room for all the BS that’s generated there, surely they can find space for some uranium rods.