Senate EPW Committee Holds Yucca Oversight Hearing

The big news this afternoon is on Capitol Hill, where the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is holding an oversight hearing on Yucca Mountain at 2:30 p.m. U.S. EST. Click here for a live stream of the hearing.

Meanwhile...

A federal judge has ordered the government to pay $34.9 million to the operator of two nuclear power plants in Alabama and Tennessee after the Energy Department failed to meet a 1998 deadline to dispose of their nuclear waste.

The ruling in favor of the Tennessee Valley Authority is the first one in which the department has been told to pay specific damages to a utility that is keeping highly radioactive spent fuel stored on-site while delays continue to hamper plans for a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Utilities that run most of the nation's 103 nuclear plants and some that have been mothballed have filed 61 lawsuits seeking similar damages.

More later, if warranted.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Used Fuel, Energy, Reprocessing, Technology, Electricity, Yucca Mountain