As Bruce will no doubt challenge my claim as he did Jim's, allow me to back it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
In the 2008 Omnibus Spending Bill, the Yucca Mountain Project's budget was reduced to $390 million. Despite this cut in funding, the project was able to reallocate resources and delay transportation expenditures to complete the License Application for submission on June 3, 2008. Lacking an operating repository, however, the federal government owes to the utilities somewhere between $300 and $500 million per year in compensation for failing to comply with the contract it signed to take the spent nuclear fuel by 1998.[8] During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to abandon the Yucca Mountain project. [9]After his election, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Obama he did not have the ability to do so.[10] On April 23, 2009, Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and eight other senators introduced legislation to provide "rebates" from a $30 billion federally managed fund into which nuclear power plants had been paying, so as to refund all collected funds if the project was in fact cancelled by Congress.[11] . . . . . The cost of the facility is being paid for by a combination of a tax on each kilowatt hour of nuclear power and by the taxpayers for disposal of weapons and naval nuclear waste. Based on the 2001 cost estimate, approximately 73 percent is funded from consumers of nuclear powered electricity and 27 percent by the taxpayers.[19] http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR_Bill_to_liquidate_the_nuclear_waste_fund_2704092.html Nevada's Yucca Mountain was set to be the USA's ultimate disposal site for highly radioactive substances such as used nuclear fuel and military wastes. Companies producing nuclear power paid 0.1 cents per kWh of power generated in the the fund from 1982, with the total reaching a whopping $30 billion. However, the project faced stiff opposition and Obama's February budget ordered the Department of Energy (DoE)to "scale back" work to almost nothing "while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal." No such new strategy has been forthcoming, leading to anger among some politicians and commentators over the apparent waste of the $13.5 billion already been spent on the project. "No-one should be required to pay for an empty hole in the Nevada desert," said Graham, adding that Obama's "ill-advised" decision was political and not scientific. He concluded: "It is incumbent on the administration to come up with a disposal plan for this real problem facing our nation." If the nuclear waste fund was handed back to the utilities that have paid into it, some 75% of it would be mandated to go back to customers. The remainder would be allocated to building interim used nuclear fuel storage facilities at current nuclear power sites where the fuel would remain until there was a new disposal route. --- On Tue, 3/15/11, John M. Steele <[email protected]> wrote: From: John M. Steele <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [USMA:50042] Alternate energy [off topic] To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>, [email protected] Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 8:39 PM If I may continue off topic, Yucca was funded by a tax on nuclear operators. The promise in exchange for the tax was supposed to be that Yucca would relive them of their waste, so they were getting good value. Of course, as it turns out, the government lied. It stole their money but failed to deliver a nuclear waste repository, and they still have it sitting on their grounds, and they have to guard it, maintain the casks, etc. --- On Tue, 3/15/11, James R. Frysinger <[email protected]> wrote: From: James R. Frysinger <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:50042] Alternate energy [off topic] To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 8:13 PM Ah, dear Bruce. You continue to pursue off topic subjects here. So I have changed the subject line to warn people off. Perhaps you should consider the tax payer dollars being spent on developing solar and wind energy sources and subsidizing purchasers of those systems before you rant about tax payer dollars going into nuclear power. Nuclear power plants, by contrast, are not subsidized by the Federal government. My understanding is that the Yucca Mountain research and development program was heavily funded by privately owned operators of nuclear power plants in the U.S. The Federal government undoubtedly spent some money coordinating that, but they did so out of consideration of the common good (a term used by economists), namely safety. The Feds run a much larger organization that also spends tax payer dollars for the sake of public safety, the EPA. Then of course, one can include the USDA and the FDA. Now, to bring this back to the topic of the SI.... I would like to see some figures showing how many tax dollars are used to establish 1 GW of generating capacity each year in the U.S. Or would it make more sense to take facility lifetimes into account and look at cost divided by lifetime energy production, say in dollars spent for each 1 MJ? Jim On 2011-03-15 1736, [email protected] wrote: > 'We spent decades and billions preparing Yucca to be that repository, > but reactionary, emotional positions like yours have wiped that out and > unsafely left waste stored above ground.' > > Yes, billions of TAX PAYERS DOLLARS. Nuke Energy is not COST EFFECTIVE. > > > > > Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr > Erie PA > Linux and Metric User and Enforcer > > Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I > hope we dont have to wait til oil and coal run out before we tackle > that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- Thomas Edison♽☯♑ > > > On Mar 15, 2011, *John M. Steele* <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm not sure what I said that prompted that. > As this amazingly emotional, but mostly data free (as far as levels) > points out, > >http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110315/ts_yblog_thelookout/japanese-nuclear-plant-workers-emerging-as-heroic-figures-in-tragedy > the workers do have protective gear, dosimeters and are rotated out > when they reach their maximum safe dose. I assume they will have to > avoid exposure for a considerable period of time to avoid exceeding > an annual average, but the article is too devoid of data to tell. > The article is also lacking in explaining what levels unevacuated > citizens (30 km from the plant) are exposed to, but logic says it is > less than at the plant. > Since you think there is no safe storage, perhaps we need to dig up > all radioactive material on earth and launch it into space (half the > rockets would probably crash). It is usually regarded as safe enough > if we had left it alone in the ground, although it goes through > essentially the same decay cycle in the ground. It is just spread > out. That suggests to me the spent fuel could be stored in the > ground. We spent decades and billions preparing Yucca to be that > repository, but reactionary, emotional positions like yours have > wiped that out and unsafely left waste stored above ground. (That > in-ground storage requires, in my view, recycling the spent fuel > rods to recover the uranium and plutonium and recycling it into new > fuel rods. That saves digging up as much ore, and radically reduces > the half-life of the waste.) > Obviously, the earthquake has caused a BIG problem with these > nuclear plants, but a properly running nuclear reactor emits less > radiation than is in the coal a coal burning plant burns. Japan > needs to recover from this mess, but then all nations operating > reactors need to learn from it. > --- On *Tue, 3/15/11, [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> /<[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>>/* wrote: > > > From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > Subject: [USMA:50039] Re: Putting radiation levels in perspective > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > Cc: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 5:57 PM > > I find it interested how arrogant certain to persons are along > with the republicans when it comes to the safety and the > well-being of workers and citizens or soldiers, when people are > right this moment are being contaminated with radiation. You can > not just shower it off, all these people are not prepared in > handle radiation, nor have protective gear. There is no > decontamination, of the lungs, after breathing in radiation > dust. Well if they die, oh well, its the good of the all that > matters as long as I have my power NOW. Nukes in any form is not > safe. There is no safe location for storage, perhaps we can use > the backyards of the 'supporters' homes for storage space, hell > why not, they would be paid handsomely with tax payers money for > hundreds of years to come, they probability get a tax write off > to boot. > > > Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr > Erie PA > Linux and Metric User and Enforcer > > Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of > power! I hope we dont have to wait til oil and coal run out > before we tackle that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- > Thomas Edison♽☯♑ > -- James R. Frysinger 632 Stony Point Mountain Road Doyle, TN 38559-3030 (C) 931.212.0267 (H) 931.657.3107 (F) 931.657.3108
