This publication has been issued for public comment. Comments will be accepted until November 23, 2026. To submit comments, please see Docket ID Number NRC-2026-4588.
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Publication Information
Manuscript Completed: October 2026
Date Published: October 2026
Prepared by:
S. Short and C. Splitz
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA 99352
E. Tabakov, NRC Project Manager
Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Abstract
Pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 50.75, “Reporting and Recordkeeping for Decommissioning Planning,” the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires nuclear power reactor licensees to adjust annually, in current year dollars, their estimate of the cost to decommission their plants. The annual updates are part of the process for providing reasonable assurance that adequate funds for decommissioning will be available when needed. This NUREG, which is periodically revised, describes the formula in 10 CFR 50.75(c) that is acceptable to the NRC for determining the minimum decommissioning fund requirements for nuclear power reactor licensees. This formula is based on the estimated cost of decommissioning a reference pressurized-water reactor (PWR) and a reference boiling-water reactor (BWR) in 1986 and is escalated to current year dollars using an adjustment factor provided in 10 CFR 50.75(c)(2). The primary purpose of this report is to provide the technical basis, including references, for the estimated cost of decommissioning the reference PWR and reference BWR, and to develop the escalation factor for the low-level radioactive waste (LLW) burial cost portion of the adjustment factor. Escalation factors for the other portions of the adjustment factor (i.e., labor and energy costs), are also provided in this report.
This 21st revision of NUREG-1307, “Changes in Decommissioning Waste Disposal Costs at Low-Level Waste Burial Facilities,” contains burial cost escalation factors updated to the year 2026 for the reference PWR and for the reference BWR. As presented in Table 2-1, “Values of Bx as a Function of LLW Burial Site and Year,” multiple burial cost escalation factors are provided that reflect various LLW burial scenarios for each reactor type. These were developed because licensees may have the option to dispose of LLW at one or more of the four currently operating LLW disposal facilities in the United States licensed by the NRC or Agreement States, and the cost of disposal varies among each of the four facilities. In addition, there are various limitations on LLW disposal facility access by reactors, based upon the state in which the reactor is located. The different LLW burial scenarios are described in detail in Section 1.2, “LLW Disposal Cost Scenarios.”
The currently operating LLW disposal facilities that are licensed by the NRC or Agreement States are located in 1) Texas, 2) South Carolina, 3) Washington, and 4) Utah. The Texas, South Carolina, and Washington facilities are the host disposal sites for the Texas LLW Disposal Compact (Texas Compact), the Atlantic Interstate LLW Management Compact (Atlantic Compact), and the Northwest Compact on LLW Management (Northwest Compact), respectively (Appendix E provides additional information about LLW compacts), and are referred to in this report as compact-affiliated disposal facilities. The Washington LLW disposal facility also accepts LLW generated in the three member-states of the Rocky Mountain LLW Compact (Rocky Mountain Compact). The fourth site (Utah) is not associated with a specific LLW compact, so it is referred to in this report as a non-compact disposal facility. In addition, for the first time with this revision of NUREG-1307, disposal of low activity waste (a subset of LLW) at a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle C hazardous waste disposal facility located in Texas that is not regulated by the NRC or an Agreement State is considered. Nuclear power plant facilities located within LLW compacts that have compact-affiliated disposal facilities can dispose of their LLW at the affiliated disposal facility or, in some cases, can dispose of a portion of their LLW at the non-compact disposal facility. Nuclear power plants not located within an LLW compact having a compact-affiliated disposal facility can dispose of their LLW at either the Texas or Utah disposal facilities. The Utah facility accepts only Class A LLW while the Texas compact-affiliated facility will accept Class A, B, and C LLW (see Section 1.1 for definitions of these LLW classes). The RCRA Subtitle C disposal facility located in Texas accepts low activity waste. For plants that have no disposal site available within their designated LLW compact, this report assumes that the cost for disposal of Class A LLW is the same as that for the Utah disposal facility, the cost for disposal of Class B and C LLW is the same as that for the Texas LLW disposal facility and includes accounting for out-of-compact fees, and the cost for disposal of low activity waste is the same as that for the Texas RCRA Subtitle C disposal facility.
In the 2025 decommissioning fund status reporting cycle, in which licensees provided decommissioning trust fund data to the NRC by March 31, 2025, as required by 10 CFR 50.75(f), 74 of the 94 operating reactors in the U.S. applied LLW burial cost escalation factors based on the Table 2-1 scenario in which generators are located in States that do not have a compact-affiliated LLW disposal facility. In this current revision to NUREG-1307, estimated 2026 disposal costs for this scenario are approximately 55 percent lower for the referenced PWR and 50 percent lower for the referenced BWR compared to 2024 disposal costs. For the referenced PWR and BWR, the decreases in disposal costs are due to disposal of low activity waste at the Texas RCRA Subtitle C disposal facility, which has a lower unit cost of disposal than that for LLW disposal facilities.
In the same 2025 NRC reporting cycle, 4 of the 94 operating plants in the U.S. applied LLW burial cost escalation factors based on the Table 2-1 scenario in which compact affiliated generators used only the Texas compact-affiliated LLW disposal facility. In this current revision to NUREG-1307, the estimated 2026 disposal costs for the Texas compact-affiliated LLW disposal facility are unchanged for the reference PWR and BWR, compared to 2024 disposal costs.
Also, in the 2025 NRC reporting cycle, 13 of the 94 operating plants in the U.S. applied LLW burial cost escalation factors based on the Table 2-1 scenarios in which Atlantic Compact-affiliated generators used only the South Carolina compact-affiliated LLW disposal site or used a combination of both the South Carolina compact-affiliated disposal site and the non-compact disposal facility. (The South Carolina disposal site accepts LLW from facilities located in South Carolina, New Jersey, and Connecticut, all members of the Atlantic Compact.) In this current revision to NUREG-1307, estimated 2026 disposal costs using only the South Carolina compact-affiliated LLW disposal site are approximately 2.3 percent higher for both the reference PWR and the reference BWR compared to 2024 disposal costs. The estimated disposal costs using the combination of both the South Carolina disposal site and the non-compact disposal facility are approximately 42 percent lower for the PWR and approximately 27 percent lower for the BWR compared to 2024 disposal costs. Increases in disposal costs were due to increases in charges for weight, activity (or curie), and irradiated hardware at the compact-affiliated LLW disposal site. Decreases in disposal cost using the combination of both the South Carolina disposal site and the non-compact disposal facility are due to disposal of low activity waste at the Texas RCRA Subtitle C disposal facility, which has a lower unit cost of disposal than that for LLW disposal facilities.
Lastly, in the 2025 NRC reporting cycle, 1 of the 94 operating plants in the U.S. applied a LLW burial cost escalation factor based on the Table 2-1 scenario in which a compact affiliated generator used only the Washington disposal site. The estimated 2026 disposal cost using only the Washington disposal site, which accepts LLW from the 11 member-states of the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Compacts, are approximately 33 percent and 30 percent higher for the reference PWR and BWR, respectively, compared to 2024 disposal costs. Increases in disposal costs were due to modest increases in LLW volume, container, and site availability charges and a substantial increase in the site surveillance fee.
Licensees may use the escalation factors from this NUREG in their cost analyses, or, per regulation at 10 CFR 50.75(b)(1), they may generate and report site-specific cost estimates that result in a total cost estimate of no less than the amount estimated by using the 10 CFR 50.75(c) formula and cost escalation factors presented in this NUREG. In the 2025 NRC reporting cycle, 2 of the 94 operating plants in the U.S. reported cost data using site-specific cost estimates.
Revision 21 to NUREG-1307 assumes that LLW generated from day-to-day plant operations would be disposed of using the licensee’s operating funds and thus would not rely on decommissioning funds identified in the formula calculation. However, facilities located in States that are members of an LLW compact with no available LLW disposal site may be forced to provide interim storage for this waste (although most LLW could potentially be disposed of at a non-compact disposal facility, such as the facility located in Utah or at the compact-affiliated disposal facility located in Texas). Accordingly, some of the LLW may ultimately need to be disposed of during decommissioning following interim storage. For those plants operating through extended license terms, this volume can become significant, and the disposal cost would not be accounted for in a decommissioning trust fund based on the formula calculation.