Up, up and away as Yucca price soars

The price tag for the proposed high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, NV, continues to rise with new estimates announced on August 5 topping $96.2 billion. The Department of Energy's director of nuclear waste programs, Ward Sproat, released the new estimates, up from the $57.5 billion cost projected in 2001. Sproat said he based the new figures on an assumption that the 77,000-ton Yucca capacity would be too small and should be expanded to 122,000 tons of waste. At the current capacity and with continued nuclear waste generation, the Yucca dump, if opened, would be full by 2010. (Photo of Yucca sweatlodge by Gabriela Bulisova).