NEI Nuclear Notes

Over at our main website, we've just published a Q&A with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on what might happen next with the Nuclear Waste Fee . Among the takeaways: As of Dec. 31, 2013, consumers have paid more than $20 billion into fund While fee is no longer being collected, interest accrues on the balance NARUC believes once program "gets back on its feet," collection of the fee would resume The fee totaled about $750 million a year industrywide and, since its inception, more than $20 billion has been paid into the fund by nuclear energy consumers. See map for totals by state: Our readers will recall that the fee was suspended last month after an appellate court ruled last November that in light of the department’s termination of the Yucca Mountain repository program, DOE could not continue to collect the surcharge of one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour on consumers of nuclear-generated electricity. Here's what NEI...

The nuclear waste fee, established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, pays for the building of a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel. When the government settled on Nevada’s Yucca Mountain for the repository site, Congress in 1987 amended the act to include it. All that made sense – the industry paid for a repository and the government would take charge of used fuel and put it there. But when President Barack Obama ended the Yucca Mountain project in 2009 with no alternative site envisioned, numerous unresolved problems developed: first, the law stipulates Yucca Mountain and no place else as the repository. And second, how much money should the industry’s ratepayers pay into the nuclear waste fund without an actual repository to fund. Is $29 billion enough? Because that’s how much has been collected. Should the industry keep paying about $750 million per year when the government has no designated repository site to spend it on. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Was...

I'm a Washington policy professional but also a Washington native, and so over the better part of four decades I've developed a distinct appreciation for how policy in this city is covered by the fourth estate. To cut to the chase: I'm pretty much underwhelmed/infuriated by a wide swath of the Washington press corps on pretty much a daily basis. But not today. For the better part of the past month I've worked closely and in most rewarding fashion with the producer-reporter tandem of David Fitzpatrick and Drew Griffin of CNN. Tonight of course that outlet is airing the magnificent documentary ' Pandora's Promise .' In support of the documentary CNN has devoted extraordinary resources this fall to informing the public about nuclear energy. In sprawling digital and broadcast news and commentary this week, CNN has covered nuclear's voices pro and con, academic and activist, political and wonkish. Nuclear power in the United States has known both triumph a...

Rep. John Shimkus You can't find a more passionate supporter of the Yucca Mountain repository on Capitol Hill than Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). For years, Shimkus has been a champion of electricity rate payers who have been dutifully contributing to the Nuclear Waste Fund only to see the Federal government continually fail to fullfill its obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act . Earlier today, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed by the dogged Rep. Shimkus entitled, " Nuclear waster: The name is Yucca Mountain ." Though the full text of the article is behind one of those dreaded paywalls, we've excerpted a few choice passages for your reading pleasure. After spending $15 billion analyzing it [Yucca Mountain], the Department of Energy in 2008 finally filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an application for a license to build and operate the project. Numbering nearly 10,000 pages, the application addressed every imaginable question of safe...