Washington (Platts)--10Feb2010/526 pm EST/2226 GMT

Customers of nuclear utilities have already paid $33 billion, including interest, into a federal trust fund to bankroll the civilian nuclear waste program that the US Department of Energy now plans to end this fiscal year.

But costs taxpayers would face with the termination of DOE's Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada would overshadow that, according to the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition. The coalition is an ad hoc group of state utility regulators, state attorneys general, electric utilities and organizations in 21 states that has supported the Yucca Mountain project.

In a letter to key House and Senate appropriators Tuesday, the NWSC called termination of the Yucca Mountain project "imprudent," saying it will cost nuclear utility customers even more given the administration has no "Plan B," or backup plan, "except to strand spent nuclear fuel and high-level [defense] radioactive waste at 121 commercial and defense sites in 39 states for an indefinite period."

The letter added: "To add insult to injury, these same ratepayers will now be funding additional on-site storage facilities. In addition, DOE's failure to fulfill its statutory and contractual obligations to carry out the [Nuclear Waste Policy Act], is burdening US taxpayers with additional liabilities currently estimated as high $50 billion. Seventy-one breach-of-contract claims have been filed against the DOE since 1998, already resulting in more than $1.2 billion in damages awards. This amount does not include the $150 million in litigation expenses incurred by the Department of Justice to defend these cases."

The letter will be among the Yucca Mountain-related issues the coalition will discuss in a closed-door meeting February 14 during the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' winter meeting in Washington.

--Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com