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]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-7>^
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/Barack_Obama> promised to abandon
the Yucca Mountain project. ^[9]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-8>^After
his election, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Obama he did not
have the ability to do so.^[10]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-Shuler-9>^On
April 23, 2009, Lindsey Graham
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/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]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-10>^
. . . . .
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://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=1300276882&.rand=34vrgest0sg7k#cite_note-18>^
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]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[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]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[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]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>
> <mailto:[email protected]> /<[email protected]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>
> <mailto:[email protected]>>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: [email protected]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
> <[email protected]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>>
> Subject: [USMA:50039] Re: Putting radiation levels in
perspective
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
> Cc: [email protected]
<http://us.mc824.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[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
