Newsweek Says Washington Nuke Plant Overpaid for Fuel

Energy Northwest's Nuclear Plant in Richland, Wash.
By NIGEL JAQUISS

The current edition of Newsweek contains the tortuous tale of how Energy Northwest, which operates the region's only nuclear energy plant, teamed up with two U.S. Senators from Kentucky to pull off a complex, $711 million purchase of 31 years worth of fuel for the plant.

The problem, according to the article's author, Pulitzer-prize winner David Cay Johnston, is Energy Northwest didn't need the fuel for its Richland, Wash. plant, and and paid at least a quarter of a billion too much.

report
McCullough Research
Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Newsweek's
archaic and heavily-polluting technology
"This was not a business deal,"
Christopher E. Paine, a nuclear specialist at the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, told Newsweek. "It was exactly like the old Soviet deals in the days of Soviet central planning."

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