Q: Who will pay for the development, licensing and construction of a deep geologic repository?

A: Electricity consumers pay one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour of electricity used from nuclear power plants to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund to finance DOE’s repository project. Approximately $30 billion has been committed to the fund since 1983, which will be used for developing and licensing a repository at Yucca Mountain. So far, about $10 billion has been spent to study geologic disposal, primarily at the Yucca Mountain site.

Q: Since no federal repository exists, where have nuclear power plants been storing used nuclear fuel?

A: Because the federal government defaulted on its legal obligation to begin removing used nuclear fuel from power plants by January 1998, 104 operating and 14 shutdown U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors are safely storing fuel on site.

Although used fuel is adequately safeguarded at reactor sites, storage at these sites is not a substitute for permanent disposal at a federal repository. These on-site facilities were not designed to function for the thousands of years during which a deep geologic repository would safely contain the used fuel.

This temporary storage solution is costly to electricity consumers, who must pay for both storage and disposal. Each year of delay in the federal program for removing used nuclear fuel from reactor sites will add an estimated $1 billion in temporary storage costs.

Additionally, scientists, the industry and the federal government have supported the disposal of used nuclear fuel at one centralized underground location, instead of multiple locations across the country. This will allow even more efficient and safer management and effective security of used fuel and defense radioactive waste. There is also growing support for the federal government to take possession of used nuclear fuel and move it to centralized above-ground interim storage until disposal and/or recycling capability can be developed.