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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Nuclear waste fund fee adequacy: an assessment. Revision

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6129207· OSTI ID:6129207

This is the fourth annual report in a series that evaluates the adequacy of the fees assessed to cover the federal government's costs for the disposal of high-level radioactive wastes. As with past reports, the fees for commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) are covered. The principal recommendation of this year's analysis is that the ongoing disposal fee should remain at 1.0 mill per (net) kilowatt-hour (kwH) for 1986 based on the assumption that defense waste fees will be adequate to cover the defense share of the program costs and the following findings: The current 1.0 mill per kwH fee is projected to produce revenues sufficient to offset estimated total system life-cycle costs for a reasonable range of program cost, nuclear electric generation, and interest rate forecasts, as detailed later in this report. Many of the cost and revenue forecasts analyzed, particularly those for the US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) Mid Case generation forecast that includes no increased fuel burnup, show margins of revenues over costs. Future program cost increases due to general inflation or real price increases could be recovered by indexing the fee to an inflation or other cost index. These findings are based on a cash flow analysis that utilized methods very similar to those employed in previous fee adequacy studies. Refinements were made in the areas of system logistics, repository acceptance schedules, repository operating profiles, real interest rates, inflation rates, and the estimation of costs for transportation and repositories in differing host rocks.

Research Organization:
USDOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Washington, DC
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
OSTI ID:
6129207
Report Number(s):
DOE/RW-0020-Rev.; ON: TI86009170
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English