Decades after Congress decided the U.S., not private firms, would be responsible for storing nuclear waste, the cost has grown to $7.5 billion and rising.
Nuclear waste is stored in underground containers at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho, on May 11, 2015.
With no place of its own to keep the waste, the government now says it expects to pay $35.5 billion to private companies as more and more nuclear plants shut down, unable to compete with cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources. Storing spent fuel at an operating plant with staff and technology on hand can cost $300,000 a year. The price for a closed facility: more than $8 million, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
In the meantime, the United States has no permanent place of its own to store radioactive material that will remain deadly for several thousand years.About 80,000 metric tons of nuclear waste have been stored at 72 private locations across the nation, enough to cover a football field to a depth of about 66 feet, according to the Government Accountability Office.
“We only remain in business because the federal government has not met its obligation to remove the fuel,” said Eric Howes, director of public and government affairs at Maine Yankee. “Our only purpose is to store the fuel.”
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