No. of Recommendations: 1
That was the theory behind nuclear waste repository on Yucca Mountain. Didn’t work out, somehow.
iirc, the facility was essentially completed, so the contractors made their profit off it. "Mission accomplished". Just like defense contractors that milk the "development" phase of a weapons system contract, but then the program is cancelled with little, or nothing, actually built for deployment. Remember the Clinch River fast breeder reactor project? The pump seal company I worked for was involved in it. According to the Google net sifter, $1.7B has been spent ($5.63B in 2025 dollars according to the BLS calculator) What did we get for all that money? Nothing.
What the contractors had been paid for, up to 1983, according to the net sifter:
What was completed: By 1983, design work was over 90% complete and major components worth hundreds of millions of dollars were finished or on order. Site preparation was also essentially completed
Steve
