DOE Found Not Responsible for Nuclear Waste Expenditures (spent fuel cost socialization fail)

[jpak]

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/04/08/08greenwire-doe-found-not-responsible-for-nuclear-waste-ex-88354.html

A Washington state utility did not prove that the federal government's failure to dispose of nuclear waste from its embattled reactor forced the company to upgrade a $60 million nuclear waste storage facility, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said Energy Northwest did not make the case that the federal government's failure to take waste from its 1,150 megawatt Columbia Generating Station required the company to modify its spent fuel storage facility.
The 26-year-old nuclear reactor and dry storage facility are located 10 miles north of Richland, Wash.

Energy Northwest sued the Department of Energy in 2004 for money it spent on moving spent nuclear fuel from its overcapacity spent fuel pools to a newly built dry storage facility. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims then granted Energy Northwest more than $55 million in damages last year.
But the appeals court yesterday vacated the claims court's ruling, saying Energy Northwest failed to prove the government's breach of contract required the company to make the upgrades. Therefore, the court said, the federal government is not required to pay the utility $7 million for modifying the spent fuel storage facility or interest payments the utility made in connection with the project.

However, the appeals court ruled Energy Northwest was rightfully granted $2.9 million in "overhead costs" associated with the storage facility.

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