Federal Inaction Will Cost Utility Customers $32 Million Through 2004

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Wednesday April 28, 11:20 am Eastern Time

Company Press Release

SOURCE: Consumers Energy

Top Consumers Energy Executive: Federal Inaction Will Cost 
Utility Customers $32 Million Through 2004  

LANSING, Mich., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The federal 
government's refusal to live up to its obligation to accept spent 
nuclear fuel will cost Consumers Energy's electricity customers 
more than $32 million through 2004, a top utility executive told 
lawmakers today.  

``The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was supposed to have a 
repository for spent nuclear fuel ready by January 1998. The DOE 
isn't even close. That means the customers of Consumers Energy 
and every other nuclear utility are paying twice: Once for the 
development of the national repository and again for the storage at 
power plants,'' said John W. Clark, senior vice president of 
Consumers Energy.  

Clark testified before the Michigan House Energy and Technology 
Committee. He urged lawmakers to vote for a resolution calling on 
the federal government to meet its obligations to open a national 
repository for spent nuclear fuel. The resolution is sponsored by 
Rep. Mary Ann Middaugh, who chairs the House Energy and 
Technology Committee.  

Middaugh's resolution notes that a 1982 federal law requires the 
DOE to build a permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. 
DOE has been working on a proposed site at Yucca Mountain, 
Nevada.  

Clark pointed out that customers of electric utilities with nuclear 
power plants continue to pay more than $600 million a year for a 
national repository. The federal Nuclear Waste Fund totals $15 
billion. The Michigan contribution to this fund is nearly $700 million, 
with $200 million coming from Consumers Energy customers, 
since its inception.  

``Funding hasn't been a problem, yet DOE says 2010 is the 
earliest that it expects to have a facility open,'' Clark said. ``It took 
the United States less than a decade to put a man on the moon, 
yet it's going to take nearly 30 years to open this repository. I find 
it difficult to comprehend why the federal government has failed to 
act.''  

Passage of the resolution will tell the Congress and the federal 
government that Michigan lawmakers and citizens want a facility 
completed at Yucca Mountain, Clark said. Clark also urged 
lawmakers to support a federal bill introduced by Michigan U.S. 
Rep. Fred Upton that would require the DOE to create an interim 
storage facility. ``Passage and enactment of the Upton bill is 
imperative. The federal government must conclude that one 
federally built and licensed site in the Nevada desert is preferable 
to four sites in Michigan and another 100 sites across the United 
States,'' Clark said.  

The House Commerce Committee recently approved the Upton bill 
and sent it to the full House for consideration.

The spent fuel is being stored at the nation's 103 nuclear reactors 
in 34 states. Many of the reactor units are running out of room in 
their original storage facilities.  

Consumers Energy's Palisades plant has used a dry cask system 
approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hold some of 
its spent fuel since May 1993. To date, 13 of the concrete and 
steel casks are being used and another five are scheduled to be 
filled, starting this May.  

The utility's Big Rock Point plant was shut down in 1997 and is 
being decommissioned. The plant's spent fuel is scheduled to be 
transferred to seven casks in May 2002. The casks will be kept in 
a secure area and monitored as the plant site is returned to its 
natural state.  

``The lack of a national repository for spent nuclear fuel will add a 
number of years to our efforts to return Big Rock Point to a green 
field,'' Clark pointed out.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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