The owners of a third of the nation's nuclear plants, including the damaged reactor at Three Mile Island, aren't setting aside enough money to dismantle the plants when they close, according to a new federal study.

That could mean higher electric rates for some Pennsylvanians if companies increase their annual contributions to catch up. From Our Advertiser

If the companies don't close the shortfall, the study warns, taxpayers may face billions in cleanup costs when the plants' useful lives are ended, most likely decades from now.

Nuclear plant owners are required to make payments into a trust fund, based on the estimated cost of decommissioning their plants. Thirty-three owners who control all or part of 42 nuclear stations are behind in those payments, according to the General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.

The total decommissioning bill for all existing plants is estimated to be $33 billion.

The lifetime of a nuclear power plant is estimated to be 40-60 years. At that age, industry experts say, facility wear and fatigue can make continued operation unsafe. The plants are licensed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 40 years, with the opportunity to apply for extensions.

Under federal law, decommissioned plants must be dismantled and the land returned to pristine condition.

Pennsylvania plants that are under-funded, according to the GAO report, are Limerick 1 and 2 in Montgomery County; Peach Bottom 1 in York County; Three Mile Island 2, and Susquehanna 1 and 2 near Berwick.

The TMI-2 unit, closed since the 1979 accident at the plant, is in "monitored storage" status. It will not go through the decommissioning process until the adjacent TMI-1 unit closes.

TMI-2 is jointly owned by Metropolitan-Edison, Pennsylvania Electric and Jersey Power and Light, which are subsidiaries of First Energy Corp. The GAO said the companies' payments to the trust fund were up to 25 percent below what is needed.

Declining investments for First Energy's trust fund diminished its value in recent years, spokesman Scott Shields said. But the fund was not in danger, he said.

"We are aware of our commitments [to save for decommissioning] and are taking the necessary steps to do that," Shields said.

The GAO report was sharply criticized by the NRC and by Exelon Nuclear, which owns controlling interests in the undamaged TMI-1, and the Peach Bottom and Limerick stations.

"All of our sites are fully funded for decommissioning," said Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbitt. "They are on track to be fully funded now, and they will be fully funded when the time comes to decommission."

The operating license for TMI-1 is scheduled to expire in 2014; Exelon has not announced a decision on seeking renewal.

Nesbitt said the GAO report failed to account for the fact that companies vary their funding strategies, depending on the makeup of their plants. For example, he said, most plants have two or more reactors that share equipment. Plus, two-reactor plants will not be decommissioned until both units are spent.

The GAO used the contributions made by nuclear plant operators for 1999 and 2000 to calculate how the funds would accumulate by the time each plant's license expired, said Tim Guinane of the GAO.

The agency found that nuclear plant operators had set aside about $26.9 billion as of 2000, about 47 percent more than needed. But the total was misleading, the report said, because many companies were underfunded and the money is not transferable.

The GAO findings were disputed by the NRC, which reported in 2001 that owners' contributions were on track to meet their financial obligations. The NRC used a different method of assessment, and did not accept the GAO's version, said William D. Travers, NRC executive director for operations.

The GAO said the NRC's method of tracking owner contributions was ineffective because they were based on financial pledges and not on actual dollars.

Both the GAO and the NRC projections could be wrong. No one knows for sure how much it will cost to decommission a nuclear plant, because it has not been done.

"Estimates are based on the volume of materials that would have to be shipped and stored," Exelon's Nesbitt said. "... Nobody really knows [what the cost will be.] You base it on the best data you have available."

Eric Epstein, president of Three Mile Island Alert, and founder of the EFMR Monitoring Fund, who has helped negotiate cost-recovery plans for nuclear plants before the Pennsylvania Utilities Commission, estimates that the industry is billions short of what will be needed.

Estimates are based on plans that assume that low-level nuclear waste from Pennsylvania plants will be shipped to a dump site that doesn't exist, Epstein said. The estimate also assumes there will be a place to store the spent fuel rods and other high-level wastes. The federal government has yet to build such a site.