Waste Management

Yucca Mountain? The Bulletin says to look elsewhere

August 28, 2020, 7:15AMAround the Web

Noting that both presidential candidates are opposed to the Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada, David Klaus writes in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that “it is time for everyone else to accept that Yucca Mountain is finally off the table, and for the United States to begin to seriously consider realistic alternatives for safely managing the more than 80,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel currently sitting at 72 operating and shutdown commercial nuclear reactor sites across the country.”

In making his case, Klaus, who served as deputy undersecretary for management and performance at the Department of Energy, points to the tortured history of the project and its inability to garner the necessary support and funding from Congress. Klaus adds that even if properly funded, the geologic repository would be hamstrung by the myriad legal challenges it would face. It is time, he argues, that the United States follow the example of the rest of the world and initiate a new, consent-based siting process.

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