Nuclear Waste Fund

Funding for developing commercial waste disposal faciUties is to come from the waste generators. In the case of spent fuel disposal, a Nuclear Waste Fund is accumulating based on an assessment of one mill per kilowatt-hour of electricity. For low level wastes, surcharges on waste disposal and direct assessments of utiUties have been imposed. 

The act created the Nuclear Waste Fund to finance the waste disposal program. Since 1983, the federal government has collected from nuclear utilities fees determined by the amount of electricity generated. 

Apparently, US nuclear utilities pay about 750 nullion into the Nuclear Waste Fund every year, plus several 100 million on dry storage casks and their secure storage on-site. For 60 years, as in the NRC scenario, this would be about 45 biUion collected from customers via a surcharge, plus any other interim storage costs. 

Producers of electricity from nuclear power plants are assessed a fee of 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour to pay for future storage of spent nuclear fuel at a federal facility. Receipts from this fee are allocated to the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund and arc appropriated by Congress to cover the costs of developing and constructing a permanent storage facility. 

League of Women Voters Education Fund (LWV) 1985. The Nuclear Waste Primer. Nick Lyons Books, New York. 90 pp. 

In 1987, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act. The Act provided that DOE restrict studies for a repository to Yucca Mormtain, Nevada. The Act also authorized DOE construct an interim storage site for SNF, but the facility could not be located in Nevada and funds for its construction cottld not be authorized rmtil Yucca Mormtain was licensed for construction (for fear that the interim site wottld become a permanent repository). The act imwittingly made interim storage a de facto adjrmct to... 

Because of its controversial nature, no nuclear waste generated over the past 50 years has been permanently disposed of. However, in 1982 the U.S. Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which established a timetable for choosing and preparing sites for deep underground disposal of radioactive materials. The program is funded by a tax of 0.1% per kilowatt hour on electricity generated by nuclear power. 

Wiltshire, S. D. 1993. The nuclear waste primer, a handbook for citizens, rev. ed. The League of Women Voters Educ. Fund. New York Lyons Burford Publ. Co. 

In its November 1997 report, the PCAST Panel on Energy Research and Development determined that establishing nuclear energy as a viable and expandable option was important and that a properly focused R D effort to address the potential long-term barriers to expanded use of nuclear power (e g. nuclear waste, proliferation, safety and economics) was appropriate. The PCAST panel further recommended that DOE reinvigorate its nuclear energy research and development activities in an R D effort to address these potential barriers with a new Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI). This new initiative should fund research based on competitive selection of proposals from the national laboratories, universities and industry. 

In mid-November 2001, DOE amended the policies under the NWPA of 1982 for evaluating the suitability of Yucca Mormtain as a site for development of a nuclear waste repository. On June 3,2008, DOE submitted a license application to the NRC seeking approval to construct the repository. In 2010, DOE filed a motion to withdraw its application but this motion was denied. DOE began shutting down the Yucca Mountain project in 2009 and funding was terminated in 2011. 

The FNFCC would probably be controlled by a Board of Directors, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Initial financing could come from assessments against utilities for reprocessing of existing spent fuel, as for the new high-level waste program. An assessment of 3 mils per kilowatt hour of nuclear electricity produced would probably fund all operations of the FNFCC, and all of the nuclear power research, development, and demonstraton presently funded in the DOE budget. 

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