Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository

Yucca Mountain

The proposed design^[1]

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 site is on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site in Nye County, Nevada, about 80 mi (130 km) northwest of the Las Vegas Valley.

The project was approved in 2002 by the 107th United States Congress, but the 112th Congress ended federal funding for the site via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011, during the Obama administration.^[3] The project has encountered many difficulties and was highly contested by the public, the Western Shoshone peoples, and many politicians.^[4] The project also faces strong state and regional opposition.^[5] The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.^[6]

This leaves the United States government (which disposes of its transuranic waste from nuclear weapons production 2,150 feet (660 m) below the surface at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico)^[7] and American nuclear power plants without any designated long-term storage for their high-level radioactive waste (spent fuel) stored on-site in steel and concrete casks (dry cask storage) at 76 reactor sites in 34 states.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reviewed options other than Yucca Mountain for a high-level waste repository. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, established by the Secretary of Energy, released its final report in January 2012. It detailed an urgent need to find a site suitable for constructing a consolidated geological repository, stating that any future facility should be developed by a new independent organization with direct access to the Nuclear Waste Fund, which is not subject to political and financial control as the Cabinet-level DOE is.^[12] But the site met with strong opposition in Nevada, including from then-Senate leader Harry Reid.^[2]

Under President Donald Trump, the DOE ceased deep borehole^[13] and other non-Yucca Mountain waste disposition research activities. For FY18, the DOE requested $120 million and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) $30 million^[14] from Congress to continue licensing activities for the Yucca Mountain Repository. For fiscal year 2019, the DOE again requested $120 million while the NRC increased its request to $47.7 million.^[15] Congress provided no funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2018.^[16] In May 2019, Representative John Shimkus reintroduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives for the site,^[2] but the Appropriation Committee killed an amendment by Representative Mike Simpson to add $74 million in Yucca Mountain funding to a DOE appropriations bill.^[2] On May 20, 2020, Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes testified in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that President Trump strongly opposes proceeding with the Yucca Mountain Repository.^[17]

In May 2021, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that Yucca Mountain would not be part of the Biden administration's plans for nuclear-waste disposal. She anticipated announcing the department's next steps "in the coming months".^[18]