WASHINGTON, Feb 16, 2006 -- UPI

 

The U.S. Energy Department says it doesn't know when it can open the nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas.

Further, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman says the department may never have accurate prediction of how much it will cost, the New York Times reported.

Bodman told a nuclear power industry conference in Washington that his department was redoing research and design for the plant that had been expected to start accepting civilan power-plant waste in 1998. The last date given for its planned opening was 2012.

Cost estimates are running as high as $60 billion.

The department is facing lawsuits from utilities that want to recover extra costs created by the delay.

"There are problems with the U.S. Geological Survey work that was done, there are problems with the EPA standards that are there, there are problems with the efforts of the Department of Energy," Bodman said. "There's plenty of blame to go around."

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