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By TERI SFORZA | tsforza@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: February 1, 2019
A U.S. Department of Energy fund to pay for the eventual disposal of nuclear waste has been earning $1.5 billion in interest each year — totaling a whopping $43.4 billion in 2018 — even as millions of pounds of radioactive waste pile up all over America in want of a permanent home.
The DOE piggy bank, dubbed the Nuclear Waste Fund, is invested in securities and earmarked for permanent disposal of spent fuel generated by commercial reactors such as San Onofre and Diablo Canyon. The fund’s most recent audit shows its value actually is down from 2016’s $46 billion.
That much money can buy a lot of things — except, apparently, permanent disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste.
