Not only has at least one commentator
pointed out the blatant lack of economic forethought in John McCain’s bald claim that he will be able to build 45 new Nuclear Power plants by 2030 -- a claim he made in June of 2008 and repeated just this month in response to questions posed in the New York Times science page...
Worse - the critical issue of nuclear waste unaddressed in McCain’s policy claim - may be reaching potentially crisis proportions just as McCain starts looking for the money to build those plants. It seems that taxpayers may have to cover DOE’s failure over the last ten years to do what it has already been contracted to do.
From a new federal case "remanded" by the appeals court back to the trial level - but not overturned - we learn the unpleasant news that our already-overstressed Treasury- read taxpayers - may be coughing up more money to take care of this additional mess left to us by our Department of Energy.
As we already know, Thomas Friedman recently lambasted McCain’s proposal that he can build 45 new power plants in barely two decades as fantasy, saying with biting sarcasm:
McCain talks about how he would build dozens of nuclear power plants. Oh, really? They go for $10 billion a pop. Where is the money going to come from? From lowering taxes?
But if that weren't bad enough, it appears that DOE just lost a federal lawsuit – partly upheld at the appellate level – for failing to take care of its own waste-clean up obligation. DOE is now faced with spending even more money on this issue back at the trial level - and from the apparent stand taken by the federal appeals court, it appears that if DOE chooses that route, such an expenditure may be money down the toilet.
in Yankee Atomic Electric Co. v. U.S. – the Court of Federal Claims has just awarded $143 million to three nuclear power companies – and obviously, DOE [read the US taxpayers] may also have to expend the funds for any additional storage beyond those built by the facilities after DOE originally failed to take action: dealing with the spent nuclear fuel ("SNF") and high-level radioactive waste ("HRW") that DOE failed to store since 1998 despite the $140 million paid to DOE by the companies.
Some details: the appellate court has told the trial court that the "acceptance rate [] could be calculated under the contract" for the "pace at which the waste from Yankee would be accepted [by] the DOE" under its "substantial factor" test] and has directed the trial court to "re-visit the substantial factor test" and then make that calculation for underlying the award. But it did not overturn the award.
A case summary of Yankee Atomic Electric Co. v. U.S., 536 F.3d 1268 (C.A. Fed., Aug. 7, 2008) is available at the Judicial View, a business law website, for those interested in more details about this August 2008 case.
It is now clear that a federal agency has not only failed to put a workable long-term storage issue on the front burner - an issue that Sen Obama consistently demands must take priority when addressing new plants; it has also demonstrated a signal failure to even do its own job of nuclear storage for which - it has already been paid.
The bottom line? McCain's frightening failure to address the issue of nuclear waste has just become even more complicated.
Any bets on what kind of soundbite he'll use to avoid this issue in the upcoming debate?