Spent nuclear fuel damages

In a number of different litigation cases involving 14 nuclear reactors at 11 plants, The Brattle Group has provided testimony regarding the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) failure to initiate a spent nuclear fuel removal program for US nuclear plants, as was required by federal statute, but proved to be infeasible.  Brattle witnesses characterized how the government should and would have carried out its contractual obligations, by developing a model for simulating a nationwide market for the exchange of spent fuel removal rights, as was enabled by the federal policies for waste management. This framework allowed them to determine the economically-reasonable expectation for the amount and timing of spent fuel removal from each individual plant in the non-breach world.  The results were used successfully to support the damage claims of the client nuclear owners for ongoing spent fuel storage costs that would have been unnecessary if the DOE had performed its contract obligations.