Approximate locations of the current sites where spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste are stored around the country.
How We Got Here
The United States has used nuclear power for more than 60 years to produce reliable, low-carbon energy and to support national defense activities. These activities have resulted in a build-up of spent (or used) nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, currently stored at sites across the country.
Spent nuclear fuel from commercial electricity generation is currently stored at reactor sites where electricity was generated and high-level radioactive waste from national defense activities is stored at several DOE-managed sites. While this temporary storage is safe in the near-term, we need a sustainable, long-term solution.
Nuclear power contributes nearly 20 percent of electricity generated in the United States. It provides more than 60 percent of our non-greenhouse-gas emitting power, making nuclear our nation’s single largest contributor of low-carbon electricity. Nuclear power remains an important part of our nation’s energy portfolio, as we strive to reduce carbon emissions and address the threat of global climate change.
As we continue to use nuclear power to meet our energy needs, we have a responsibility to find a solution to managing the waste today. A solution to siting, transporting, and disposing of our spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste will take decades to implement. As a result, we need to act now to avoid foreclosing options for future generations when they need to make choices about their energy portfolio and management of nuclear fuel cycle.
Past Efforts to Address the Nuclear Waste Management Challenge
As a nation, we have been studying nuclear waste management and geologic disposal for decades. While managing nuclear waste is technically difficult due to the long amount of time the materials remain radioactive, we have the scientific knowledge, resources, and technical capability to do so safely and effectively. Geologic disposal is widely accepted by experts nationally and internationally as the safe, responsible solution.
Congress endorsed geologic disposal in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), which provides the basic policy framework for U.S. efforts to manage nuclear waste. The Act establishes the procedures for evaluating and selecting sites for geologic repositories and sets key milestones for federal agencies to meet in implementing the policy. The NWPA charges DOE with the responsibility to site a deep geologic repository. It also directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop standards to protect the environment from offsite releases of radioactive material in repositories and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to license DOE to operate a repository only if it meets EPA’s standards and all other relevant requirements.
Following the passage of the NWPA, DOE studied several possible repository sites, until Congress passed the 1987 Amendments to NWPA, directing DOE to evaluate only Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The 1987 Amendments also established 1998 as the date by which the Department was to begin accepting spent nuclear fuel for disposal. Due to cost escalation and legal challenges, DOE missed this milestone and in 2009 determined that siting a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain was an unworkable solution.
As this experience demonstrates, past efforts to site nuclear waste management facilities have failed primarily due to social and political reasons, rather than technical ones. Experience in international communities has shown that a consent-based approach to siting, where communities are recognized as partners in managing the nation's nuclear waste, can be effective.
In fact, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (BRC) recommended a consent-based approach after conducting a comprehensive review of waste management policies. The BRC issued a final report in January 2012 with recommendations to the Department on developing a long-term solution for managing nuclear waste. In response to the BRC recommendations, the Administration issued the 2013 Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. The 2013 Strategy applies the principles of the BRC recommendations to a framework for a sustainable program to manage our nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
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