Remember Yucca Mountain?  The place in Nevada where the government decided it would be a good place to put all our nuclear waste, and then seal it up forever and ever?  And how it was going to cost $58 billion?  Well, you may not remember that last one, specifically, but that’s the part that’s moot anyway.   A new estimate released Tuesday by the administration now has costs pegged at over $90 billion to get the site open and operational.   The Associated Press reports,

Ward Sproat, the Energy Department official in charge of managing the controversial Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada, disclosed the new number to reporters after a congressional hearing Tuesday.   The estimate includes $9 billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is sealed up forever.   Some of the increase is due to inflation, Sproat said. Also Energy Department officials now expect the dump will hold more radioactive waste than the 77,000 tons initially approved by Congress.

$90 billion of money, my sources tell me. And that figure is contingent on the plant opening in 2020, which is now the earliest possible date we’re looking at.  Now, the issue is that 33 states already hold a combined 64,000 tons of radioactive material, and Nevada’s really not too jazzed about getting all of it.   Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader (who, you know, happens to be from Nevada) has so far blocked a steady supply of money to the project, and is working to stall permits for a construction license that the Energy Department needs.

So, basically, I guess the point is, $90 billion most likely isn’t the last figure we’re going to hear.   However, you can takepart here and see an unbiased list of some pros and cons of nuclear energy.   And here’s an “unbiased” for nuclear power, and here’s an “unbiased” against it.