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The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, [2] is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste in the United States.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 is a United States federal law which established a comprehensive national program for the safe, permanent disposal of highly radioactive wastes. The US Congress amended the act in 1987 to designate Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the sole repository.
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]
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.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a timetable and procedure for constructing a permanent, underground repository for high-level radioactive waste by the mid-1990s, and provided for some temporary storage of waste, including spent fuel from 104 civilian nuclear reactors that produce about 19.4% of electricity there. [39]
In total, the Ft. Calhoun reactor has 600,000 to 800,000 pounds (270,000 to 360,000 kg) of high level nuclear waste. [6] The storage was not designed to house spent fuel permanently, but when plans for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository were terminated, OPPD stated that they are "prepared to safely store material on-site as long as necessary".
A site has not been picked after work stopped on the Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository. The melters in the Low Activity Waste Facility are about 20-feet-by-30-feet and 15 feet high.
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and the locations across the U.S. where nuclear waste is stored. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the United States went into service in 1999 by putting the first cubic metres of transuranic radioactive waste [39] in a deep layer of salt near Carlsbad, New Mexico.