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

Nuclear Waste Fund fee adequacy: An assessment: Nuclear Waste Policy Act

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6351797· OSTI ID:6351797

The estimated long-term impact of the costs and fees associated with disposal of defense high-level wastes (DHLW) in the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) repository system is assessed. It is assumed that the DHLW disposal fees paid will provide funds equivalent to the OCRWM costs for disposing of this waste, including interest on costs incurred before the payment of the fee(s) to cover these costs, and the appropriate share of the common costs of the OCRWM waste disposal system. The DHLW disposal fee payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund will be subject to Congressional appropriations. This report is based on the assumptions that the first repository will open in 2003 and the second repository in 2023. In addition, this analysis features an Improved Performance System (IPS), a major component of which is a proposed (but currently unauthorized) Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility that is assumed to open in 1998. The possibility of adverse developments in inflation and real interest rates should be considered in assessing the findings of this analysis which are based on a cash flow analysis that utilized methods very similar to those employed in previous fee adequacy studies. Revisions were made in the areas of system logistics, repository schedules, real interest rates, inflation rates, and the estimation of costs for design and evaluation work, transportation, and repositories in differing host rocks. The principal recommendation is that the ongoing disposal fee should remain at 1.0 mill per (net) kilowatt-hour (kWh) for 1987 based on the assumption that defense waste fees will be adequate to cover the defense share of the program costs.

Research Organization:
USDOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Washington, DC
OSTI ID:
6351797
Report Number(s):
DOE/RW-0020-Rev.6/87; ON: DE87011692
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English