Nuclear storage costs

The Supreme Court this week let stand the most sensible course for Maine Yankee, which must hold onto its high-level waste until a federal site is found, but could sue the Energy Department because of the delay. It should.

The two-part ruling from the D.C. Court of Appeals comes after the federal government failed to find a permanent site by Jan. 1 of this year to store the 30,000 tons of radioactive fuel from the nation’s civilian nuclear reactors. Specifically, the court said operators of Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts were correct in asserting that the DOE were financially liable for the long-term costs of on-site storage, although it did not set a dollar figure on those costs. The three plants are seeking $290 million.

The half of the ruling that did not favor the plant operators requires them to maintain storage until a permanent site is operating, expected in 2010 at the earliest. Ratepayers have contributed some $15 billion for this project, with approximately $70 million from Maine, but the one approved site for the waste storage, at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, remains controversial. The plant operators — or, more particularly in the case of the three Yankee facilities, former operators — don’t want in the storage-oversight business and don’t want their sites tied up for the next few decades.

The uncertainty of where high-level waste will be stored has done as much as anything to cool the nation’s interest in nuclear power. Maine Yankee’s spent fuel currently is in a pool of water and is expected to be transferred to dry casks as the plant is dismantled. This type of storage can be carried out safely for as long as necessary.

But Maine should not want Wiscasset to become one of dozens of long-term storage sites. The court ruling is encouraging because it is emphatic: The DOE is responsbile for the spent fuel. It must remove the fuel as soon as it practically can and should pay for the storage in the meantime.

That’s a clear message and one the Supreme Court properly re-emphasized.