Analysis of the total system life cycle cost for the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program

Technical Report · Mon Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5926631

The total system life cycle cost (TSLCC) analysis for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program is an ongoing activity that helps determine whether the revenue-producing mechanism established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 - a fee levied on the producers of nuclear power - is sufficient to cover the cost of the program. This report is an input into the third evaluation of the adequacy of the fee. The total-system cost for the reference waste-management program in this analysis is estimated to be 24 and 30 billion (1984) dollars. For the sensitivity cases studied in this report, the costs could be as high as 35 billion dollars and as low as 21 billion dollars. Because factors like repository location, the quantity of waste generated, transportation-cask technology, and repository startup dates exert substantial impacts on total-system costs, there are several tradeoffs between these factors, and these tradeoffs can greatly influence the total cost of the program. The total-system cost for the reference program described in this report is higher by 3 to 5 billion dollars, or 15 to 20%, than the cost for the reference program of the TSLCC analysis of April 1984. More than two-thirds of this increase is in the cost of repository construction and operation. These repository costs have increased because of changing design concepts, different assumptions about the effort required to perform the necessary activities, and a change in the source data on which the earlier analysis was based. Development and evaluation costs have similarly increased because of a net addition to the work content. Transportation costs have increased because of different assumptions about repository locations and several characteristics of the transportation system.

• Research Organization: USDOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Washington, DC
• OSTI ID: 5926631
• Report Number(s): DOE/RW-0024; ON: DE85011220
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050900 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Transport
Handling
& Storage
051000 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Economic
Industrial
& Business Aspects
052002* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Waste Disposal & Storage
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290600 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Nuclear Energy
CHARGES
COST
LIFE-CYCLE COST
MANAGEMENT
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
TRANSPORT
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE TRANSPORTATION