Report on Waste Burial Charges: Changes in Decommissioning Waste Disposal Costs at Low-Level Waste Burial Facilities

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires nuclear power reactor licensees to annually adjust the estimate of the cost of decommissioning their plants, in dollars of the current year, as part of the process providing reasonable assurance that adequate funds for decommissioning will be available when needed. This report, which is revised periodically, explains the formula acceptable to the NRC for determining the minimum decommissioning fund requirements for nuclear power plants. The sources of information used in the formula are identified, and the values developed for the estimation of radioactive waste burial/disposition costs, by site and year, are given. Licensees may use the formula, coefficients, and burial/disposition adjustment factors from this report in their cost analyses, or they may use adjustment factors derived from any methodology that results in a total cost estimate of no less than the amount estimated by using the parameters presented in this report. Read more