WASHINGTON – Turns out, it's going to cost taxpayers $32 billion more than first thought to open and operate the nation's first nuclear waste dump.
The Bush administration's latest calculation – made public last week – is that the facility in Nevada will cost more than $90 billion.
It's the first estimate since 2001, when the figure was $58 billion.
Ward Sproat, the Energy Department official in charge of managing the controversial Yucca Mountain project, disclosed the new figures after testifying before a House energy subcommittee.
Sproat said the estimate includes $9 billion already spent and the projected cost of about 100 years of operation until the dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is sealed forever.
Some of the increase was because of inflation, Sproat said.
Also, Energy Department officials now expect the dump will hold more radioactive waste than the 77,000 tons approved by Congress.
A report with precise cost breakdowns will be released to Congress in the next several weeks, Sproat said.
Already, some 64,000 tons of radioactive spent fuel rods are stored at commercial reactor sites in 33 states, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group.
Most of the waste is stored in vaultlike pools while some has been moved into dry-cask storage, where Nevada lawmakers, who oppose Yucca Mountain, would like it to stay.
Sproat opposes that plan as impractical.
He also objected to other interim storage options raised Tuesday by frustrated lawmakers, who reported hearing from constituents about the need for new energy sources.
Commercial nuclear power plants now produce about 20 percent of U.S. electricity, but concern about waste disposal has hampered the industry's growth.
Yucca Mountain – approved by Congress in 2002 – was originally supposed to open in 1998 but has been beset by lawsuits and political and scientific controversies.
The best-possible opening date is now 2020, Sproat said.
Even that is contingent on a steady money stream, something Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has blocked.
Last week, Reid called the $90 billion figure “both brazen and ridiculous.” Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who testified Tuesday, said “the cost only goes up and the delays only grow longer.”
The Energy Department did succeed in submitting a required construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month.
The NRC has up to four years to decide whether to approve the project – but that timeline, too, is dependent on congressionally approved budgets.
