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>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.<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-7>[8]
During his 2008 presidential campaign,
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/Barack_Obama>Barack
Obama promised to abandon the Yucca Mountain
project.
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-8>[9]After
his election, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
told Obama he did not have the ability to do
so.<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-Shuler-9>[10]
On April 23, 2009,
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/Lindsey_Graham>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.<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-10>[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.<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-18>[19]
<http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR_Bill_to_liquidate_the_nuclear_waste_fund_2704092.html>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,
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[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 Edisonâ½â¯â
>
>
> On Mar 15, 2011, *John M. Steele*
<<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[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>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,
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>
/<<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>>/* wrote:
>
>
> From:
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
>
<<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
> Subject: [USMA:50039] Re: Putting radiation levels in perspective
> To: "U.S. Metric Association"
<<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
> Cc:
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>[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 Edisonâ½â¯â
>
-- James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
