Nuclear Waste Disposal: Alternatives to Yucca Mountain

Congress designated Yucca Mountain, NV, as the nation's sole candidate site for a permanent high-level nuclear waste repository in 1987, following years of controversy over the site-selection process. Over the strenuous objections of the State of Nevada, the Department of Energy (DOE) submitted a license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in June 2008 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). During the 2008 election campaign, now-President Obama lent support to Nevada's fight against the repository, contending in an issue statement that he and now-Vice President Biden "do not believe that Yucca Mountain"is a suitable site. Under the current nuclear waste program, DOE hopes to begin transporting spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain by 2020. That schedule is 22 years beyond the 1998 deadline established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Because U.S. nuclear power plants will continue to generate nuclear waste after a repository opens, DOE estimates that all waste could not be removed from existing reactors until about 2066 even under the current Yucca Mountain schedule. Not all the projected waste could be disposed of at Yucca Mountain, however, unless NWPA s current limit on the repository s capacity is increased.