Price Tag for Nuclear Waste Dump
Opening and operating the nation's first nuclear waste dump will cost more than $90 billion, an Energy Department official said. The price was $58 billion in 2001, the last time the administration released an estimate for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The estimate includes $9 billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump is sealed forever. Ward Sproat, the official in charge of the project, said at a Congressional hearing that the best-case situation would result in the Yucca Mountain site opening in 2020; originally it was supposed to open in 1998.