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An infographic about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Spent nuclear fuel is the radioactive by-product of electricity generation at commercial nuclear power plants, and high-level radioactive waste is the by-product of reprocessing spent fuel to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. [19]
Yucca Mountain is a mountain in Nevada, near its border with California, approximately 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Las Vegas. Located in the Great Basin , Yucca Mountain is east of the Amargosa Desert , south of the Nevada Test and Training Range and in the Nevada National Security Site .
The amendment explicitly named Yucca Mountain as the only site that DOE was to consider for a permanent repository for the nation's radioactive waste. Years of study and procedural steps remained. The amendment also authorized a monitored retrievable storage facility, but not until the permanent repository was licensed. [12]
Opposition to storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain has united Nevadans across political lines — until now. A Senate candidate has spoken favorably about the idea.
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository site characterization studies were conducted at the site of earlier NRDS work. Yucca Mountain extends into Area 25, which was the proposed access point for delivery of radioactive waste to the repository. [8]
US nuclear waste management policy completely broke down with the ending of work on the incomplete Yucca Mountain Repository. [2] Without a long-term solution to store nuclear waste, a nuclear renaissance in the U.S. remains unlikely. Nine states have "explicit moratoria on new nuclear power until a storage solution emerges". [3] [4]
Since the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository plan was terminated in 2008, nuclear waste will have to be stored on site in San Onofre until Congress finds another location for a nuclear waste repository. [85] SONG's nuclear waste is in steel-lined concrete pools known as wet storage.
(The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is under construction, but given strong opposition in the region, the Obama administration no longer thought this was an option.) In 1991, Xcel Energy had requested permission from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to eventually store waste in 48 dry casks on the Prairie Island site.