A subsidiary of power provider Entergy, System Fuels Inc., is entitled to about $6.6 million from the federal government stemming from the cost to load spent nuclear fuel into storage casks at the Grand Gulf, Miss., and Arkansas Nuclear One power plants, a federal court ruled Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit filing reversed a prior decision to deny the $6.6 million in damages tied to the Department of Energy’s failure to accept and dispose of spent nuclear fuel. This amount is in addition to damages already awarded: $44.4 million at Grand Gulf and $29.4 million at Arkansas Nuclear One. System Fuels filed its first complaints seeking damages in 2003 for Arkansas Nuclear One and 2005 for Grand Gulf.
The ruling Monday decision found that the Court of Federal Claims erred in both cases by denying System Fuels damages “based on alleged failures to prove how the costs to load the storage casks and canisters differ from the costs it would have incurred in loading the DOE-supplied transportation casks.”
“Such an analysis assumes that the government will accept the canistered fuel as is when the government performs in the future—an assumption that is wholly unsupported by the present record,” Monday’s filing reads.
Entergy spokesman Mike Bowling said in a statement Wednesday: “We are pleased with the federal court’s decision to compensate Entergy for damages related to the federal government’s failure to meet its legal obligations in relation to used nuclear fuel storage.”
DOE officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Monday’s ruling states that System Fuels is obligated under standard contract to load government-provided transportation casks. However, the government will not allow the storage casks used by System Fuels to be used as transportation casks.
“Thus, the costs of loading future transportation casks, or the difference between the costs of loading these storage casks and loading transportation casks, are irrelevant to System Fuels’ entitlement to the expenses it incurred for loading these storage casks,” the decision reads. “These are expenses incurred entirely for storage due to the government’s breach.”
