Yucca Mtn. cost soars to $90 billion; Reid calls new estimate 'ridiculous'

摘要

The total cost to build and operate the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository has soared to at least $90 billion, a top Energy Department official said last week. Edward Sproat, the director of DOE's nuclear waste program, cited the $90-billion estimate in a brief interview with reporters after a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. The new estimate, which Sproat said is based on 2007 dollars, is about $19 billion higher than figure DOE cited last year. And the new price tag is nearly $33 billion more than the estimate that the department issued in 2001, at the onset of the Bush administration. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who has vowed to block Yucca Mountain from ever opening, called Sproat's new estimate "brazen and ridiculous." "We already know the science of Yucca Mountain doesn't work, and now we have even more proof that the finances don't, either," Reid said. "The evidence that Yucca Mountain will never happen is growing by the day, and I will continue to do all I can to kill the proposed dump." Representative Shelley Berkley, another Nevada Democrat who staunchly opposes Yucca Mountain, offered a similar assessment.