An editorial from the Aiken (South Carolins) Standard opines that despite the recent announcement that a search has begun for a repository to house the U.S. spent fuel, the taxpayers who forked over a collective $13 billion for the Yucca Mountain project are not smiling. The DoE reported Monday that it is following up by seeking communities and states interested in housing the U.S. spent fuel. The strategy outlines a need for a pilot interim storage facility, a larger interim storage facility, and long-term geologic repositories, said Frank Orr, the Under Secretary for Science and Energy.
At some point, the search also will begin for those interested in housing nuclear waste. On paper, the effort sounds responsible. But the fact remains that the nation already had a location that would have killed two birds with one stone and housed both.
In 2002, former President George W. Bush designated Yucca Mountain as the U.S. waste repository site. The site is located within a volcanic structure near the former Nevada Test Site, about 100 miles from Las Vegas, where the nation originally intended to permanently store its nuclear waste. The facility has been heavily debated since 1994 when the DoE began construction of a 5-mile tunnel into the volcanic rocks.
The federal government poured more than $13 billion into the Yucca Mountain project, which was expected to house defense and commercial materials and remove waste from sites around the nation, including the Savannah River Site and four nuclear power plants in South Carolina.
All signs point back to Yucca Mountain as the U.S. solution to a very complex problem. Regulators believe it is viable and taxpayers have already invested. The missing piece is a firm stance from the federal government to recommit to a project that should have never been put on ice in the first place.
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