When $50 billion can’t buy much of anything

Californians paid nearly $1 billion for the permanent disposal of waste from San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, et al.

Our sister states with nuclear plants forked over about $20.2 billion for same.

Yet nearly a half century after those initial payments were made, America’s commercial nuclear waste remains exactly where it started, even as the U.S. Nuclear Waste Fund fund’s original $21.2 billion has grown to an astonishing $60.1 billion, according to figures from the the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Minus what the department spent (squandered?) on the moribund Yucca Mountain project and related efforts over the years — about $11.5 billion — we have a current balance of some $49.5 billion in the NWF, just sitting around, waiting to spring to action.

That’s an awful lot of money. But it can