Since 1974, I’ve been deeply concerned about the economic, safety, and environmental hazards of nuclear power generation. It was the subject of my first book, published in 1980.

Today’s edition of my local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, reported that three nuclear plants were awarded a combined total of $143 million in a court judgment, because the federal government has broken its contract to remove the waste.

The article is subscription-only, but here’s an excerpt:

It also could foreshadow a series of additional financial awards to operators of reactors nationwide who have argued the federal government broke contractual agreements that promised the waste would be taken away by 1998.

The award, granted by Court of Claims Judge James Merow on Saturday, was unsealed Wednesday.

It gives $32.9 million in damages to Yankee Atomic Electric Co., operator of the former Yankee Rowe reactor in Massachusetts; $34.1 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of Connecticut Yankee reactor, and $75.8 million to Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of the Maine Yankee reactor.

Note that first paragraph. As a taxpayer, I am far from enthusiastic about a long series of payouts to nuclear utilities.

The reason the feds can’t take the waste is they have nowhere to put it, and that’s in large part because there is no safe way to store the stuff for tens of thousands of years, and that’s what would be required. So it’s not surprising that local activists don’t want a waste dump shoved down their throats. This was true even before anyone thought they might be a terrorist target.

‘Nuff said–shut ‘em down!