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Duke Energy, unlike many companies operating nuclear plants in the United States, has bankrolled $1.4 billion for future decommissioning of its nuclear reactors.

SENECA — The companies that own almost half the nation's nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades an Associated Press (AP) investigation has found.

However, Duke Energy, which operates Oconee Nuclear Station (ONS) on Lake Keowee, is not among those companies.

Local Duke officials said this week that the firm has bankrolled $1.4 billion in a “decommissioning fund” and collects approximately $48 million annually under its current rate structure for this purpose. Duke began collecting the money in 1979, 15 years after it began operation at ONS.

Initially, ONS was granted a 40-year license. A 20-year extension has been obtained that will keep the unit 1 and unit 2 reactors on line until 2033, while the unit 3 reactor is scheduled for shutdown in 2034. Just this week, site manager Dave Baxter told community leaders that thought is being given to seeking another 20-year extension.

However, for now, Duke spokesperson Sandra Magee said ONS is operating from the premise that the reactors will go off-line in 2033 and 2034.

Magee explained that the money is collected as part of Duke’s rate structure, which is controlled by Public Service Commissions in both North Carolina and South Carolina. She said that the money collected to date, along with future collections and investment earnings on the funds, should provide sufficient financing for decommissioning.

Indeed, Duke would appear to be ahead of the curve, based on AP’s investigation. The average cost of dismantling a nuclear reactor is now estimated at $450 million. The average plant owner has about $300 million saved for the job.

The shortfalls are caused not by fluctuating appetites for nuclear power but by the stock market and other investments, which have suffered huge losses over the past year and devastated the plants' savings, and by the soaring costs of decommissioning.

At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material.

During the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs have soared by more than $4.6 billion because of rising energy and labor costs, while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for shutting plants down have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market.

The power companies claim they have been hammered by the same declining market returns as colleges, companies and private investors. Industry critics, however, say reactor owners weren't saving enough even before the financial collapse, and that federal regulators have not held the industry to a high enough standard.

Federal regulators are expected to release a report that will describe shortfalls at 30 of the nation's 104 nuclear plants and ask operators for details about how they plan to resolve the problem.

The amount of money set aside for dismantling the plants has decreased at nearly four of every five reactors, according to an AP analysis of financial records provided every other year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The government could force plant operators to set aside more money.

Plant owners say they have several ways to close the gap. In addition to idling the plants, the government can simply extend licenses to operate them. And investments could recover in the years to come. Industry officials say a 6 percent annual rate of return is a reasonable long-term goal.

Most nuclear plants will be operating for several more decades and will be able to recoup their fund losses, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.

Nuclear power critics say those plans are not enough.

"No one at the NRC wants to acknowledge what is absolutely obvious to us, that the funds are inadequate and that the industry has bare assets," said Arnold Gundersen, a retired nuclear engineer and decommissioning expert.

The operators of 54 nuclear plants, or more than half in the U.S., have already received 20-year license extensions. Sixteen more are being reviewed, and the commission expects to receive 21 more applications in the next several years. To date, the NRC hasn't turned down any license extensions.

While companies ask for extensions for other reasons — primarily to keep producing power and making money — some companies have explicitly told shareholders they will use license extensions to meet their decommissioning obligations.

Contributing to the dilemma faced by plants is a waste disposal problem that has become especially acute since the federal government scrapped plans to store nuclear waste at a secure facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. Instead, radioactive fuel rods are now stored in large concrete and steel canisters on plant grounds that are guarded around the clock and tested often for leaks.

Associated Press writer Dave Gram contributed to this story.