The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is out with a new estimate of what it will cost to decommission the reactor, manage high-level radioactive waste and restore the plant site.
And that figure — about $1.24 billion — is nearly double what plant owner Entergy Corp. currently has saved up in the plant's decommissioning fund.
Vermont Yankee Martin Cohn says $368 million of the total is attributable to the need for the plant to manage its high-level radioactive waste. He attributes much of that cost to the failure of the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a long-awaited plan for removing highly radioactive spent fuel from commercial reactors around the country.
Vermont Yankee announced 14 months ago that it would close at the end of this year.
