http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/waste/waste-2.cfm In the first set of rulings on breach-of-contract suits filed by several utilities, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims decreed on October 29, 1998, that DOE must pay fuel storage costs for three closed commercial reactors. Those costs are to be determined by future trials; the three utilities are claiming damages of $2.4 billion. Damage claims were denied to Northern States Power by another Court of Federal Claims judge on April 6, 1999, but that ruling was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on August 31, 2000. The Appeals court decision cleared the way for nuclear power companies to proceed with lawsuits in the Court of Federal Claims against DOE. Industry officials contend that total damages for missing the 1998 disposal deadline could eventually reach tens of billions of dollars, assuming that no disposal ever takes place. DOE has been negotiating with various reactor owners since 1999 on the missed nuclear waste deadline and reached its first settlement agreement with a nuclear utility, PECO Energy Co., on July 19, 2000. The agreement allows PECO to keep up to $80 million in nuclear waste fee revenues during the next 10 years and may result in DOE's taking title to waste and storage facilities at PECO's Peach Bottom plant in Pennsylvania. In return, PECO agreed not to sue DOE over the missed disposal deadline. Several utilities expressed opposition to the agreement, but DOE said others are considering similar settlements. The money in the fund is dissappearing to pay for temporary storage as utilities sue. And Yucca is already full. That means the rest of the funds will fall far short of pasying for processing, transport, and eventual permanent storage. I realize that your marvelous, new and improved reactors snuggled into the same sites that reactors are now located will majically use all the waste to make more power, and produce no waste doing it! Nuclear science is majical!! Hehey.