Nuclear Waste Fund Fee Adequacy: An Assessment. Nuclear Waste Policy Act

摘要

The principal recommendation of this year's analysis is that the ongoing disposal fee should remain at 1.0 mill per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for 1985, based on the following findings: The current 1.0 mill per kWh fee is projected to produce revenues sufficient to offset estimated total system life-cycle costs for a reasonable range of program cost, nuclear generation, and economic environment forecases, as detailed later in this report. For the near term, program indebtedness due to 1983 appropriations cannot be repaid until payment of a substantial fraction of the utilities' $2.3 billion debt from the one-time fee is received. Many of the cost and revenue forecasts analyzed, particularly those for the US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) Mid Case generation forecast, show margins of revenues over costs. Future program cost increases due to general inflation or real price increases could be recovered by indexing the fee to the inflation rate or another cost index. These findings are based on a cash flow analysis that utilized methods very similar to those employed in previous fee adequacy studies. Refinements were made in the areas of system logistics, repository acceptance schedules, repository operating profiles, real interest rates, and treatment of real cost increases. Nuclear wastes produced from defense activities are not considered quantitatively in this report. Preliminary analyses have indicated that economies of co-emplacing defense and civilian wastes could be beneficial to both, but methods of allocating common costs appropriately will not be recommended until cost impacts have been determined more accurately. (ERA citation 10:015756)