Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste battle over the approximately $30 billion that utilities and their customers have so far poured into the abortive Nevada storage site.
In 2008, Edward Sproat, then the head of the DOE's office of civilian radioactive waste management, said every year of delay in opening Yucca Mountain could expand the government's potential liability by $500 million.
In a nutshell: Since 1982, utility customers have been paying for a nuclear-waste repository that has never come to pass, and which now looks increasingly unlikely. Utilities have been storing their spent fuel in pools near their reactors-a temporary solution that is turning permanent.
They want their money back.
Now pro-nuclear politicians are getting on board. Last month, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced "Rebating America's Deposits Act," designed to force the administration to fix the waste issue once and for all or return the money. A similar bill was introduced in the House this week. Most of the money would go back to utility customers; 25% would compensate utilities for building temporary storage facilities.
The Department of Energy has the duty to pick up spent nuclear fuel, but utilities have been doing the job-at a cost of tens of millions of dollars each. The Nuclear Waste Fund now totals $29.6 billion dollars, but years of under-funding have left Yucca Mountain no closer to opening than when then the program began.
But one thing seems clear: The Obama administration's decision to gut Yucca Mountain doesn't kick the waste issue out of sight. It might even make fixing the waste problem more expensive.