Yucca Mountain Project cost jumps to $96 billion

Yucca Mountain Project cost jumps to $96 billion

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy announced in a new report this morning the estimated total cost to build and operate a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository would be $96.2 billion.

Counting inflation, the price tag increased by 67 percent over the department’s most recent published estimate, which was $57.5 billion in 2001.

“This increased cost estimate is reasonable given inflation and the expected increase in the amount of spent nuclear fuel from existing reactors with license renewals,” said Ward Sproat, director of DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

The new cost estimate assumes that the Yucca repository would be expanded by 30 percent to handle additional waste being generated by nuclear utilities. The expansion would require approval by Congress, which to date has shown little interest in the plan.

DOE also assumes the repository, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would remain open until 2133 to manage larger waste volumes, at which point it would be sealed to entomb the highly radioactive materials.

Inflation accounted for $16 billion of the increase, DOE said.

The new costs were detailed in a report of the “total system life cycle” operations of the Yucca project.

Las Vegas Review-Journal