Publication Laka-library:
Costs of reprocessing versus directly disposing of spent nuclear fuel
Author | Peter R.Orszag, US Senat |
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Date | November 2007 |
Classification | 6.01.0.10/76 (COSTS) |
From the publication:
CBO TESTIMONY Statement of Peter R. Orszag Director Costs of Reprocessing Versus Directly Disposing of Spent Nuclear Fuel before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senate November 14, 2007 This document is embargoed until it is delivered at 10:00 a.m. (EST) on Wednesday, November 14, 2007. The contents may not be published, transmit- ted, or otherwise communicated by any print, broadcast, or electronic media before that time. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE SECOND AND D STREETS, S.W. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515 Mr. Chairman, Senator Domenici, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to discuss the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) analysis of the costs of two alternatives for the use and disposal of nuclear fuel. For the past 50 years, the nuclear waste produced at reactors across the United States has largely been stored at the reactor sites. That practice, however, has been deemed untenable for the long run. CBO’s analysis compares the cost of two fuel-cycle alternatives for the current generation of thermal reactors. One alternative is direct disposal (as stipulated by current law), which involves using nuclear fuel once, cooling it at an interim stor- age site, and then disposing of it in a long-term repository. The second alternative is reprocessing, in which spent nuclear fuel is cooled and then reprocessed for one additional use in a reactor, and the wastes from reprocessing are stored in a long- term repository. My testimony makes the following key points: B The cost of directly disposing of spent nuclear fuel is less than the cost of repro- cessing it. That basic result holds across a wide range of plausible assumptions, but the magnitude of the cost difference between the alternatives varies signifi- cantly among diff
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