Americans are Paying More than Ever to Store Deadly Nuclear Waste

摘要

The Maine Yankee nuclear power plant hasn't produced a single watt of energy in more than two decades, but it cost U.S. taxpayers about $35 million this year. Almost 40 years after Congress decided the United States, and not private companies, would be responsible for storing radioactive waste, the cost of that effort has grown to $7.5 billion, and it's about to get even pricier. 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. The U.S. Energy Department "has been clinging to unrealistic expectations," said Rodney McCullum, senior director for decommissioning and used fuel at the institute, an industry trade group. "The industry was never supposed to have this problem."