The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the nation's only repository for certain waste from nuclear weapons research and production. The facility is expected to run out of disposal space by 2025. The Department of Energy plans to expand it, but work may not be completed before existing space is full. Accidents in 2014 reduced the plant's operations, and Energy is constructing a new ventil...

With U.S. crude oil production nearly doubling from 2009 to 2015, Congress repealed the crude oil export ban in December 2015—allowing the free export of U.S. crude oil worldwide. We found that repealing the ban was associated with: Expanding the market for U.S. crude oil to overseas buyers Allowing producers to charge higher prices relative to comparable foreign oil Decreasing profit margins f...

The Department of Energy has been building a nuclear waste treatment plant at its Hanford, Washington site since 2000. Part of the plant (a pretreatment facility) has cost $3.8 billion so far. Technical challenges that posed major safety risks prompted DOE to stop work on the facility in 2012. Since then, DOE has spent $752 million (as of FY 2018), mostly to preserve and maintain it, and another...

Cleaning up 3 plants where uranium was enriched will cost billions of dollars and span decades. These sites—near Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah, Kentucky; and Portsmouth, Ohio—are contaminated with radioactive and hazardous materials. DOE reported spending about $15.5 billion to clean these areas up, as of 2018. The Department of Energy’s current estimate of remaining cleanup costs—more th...

The National Nuclear Security Administration manages 57.2 metric tons of surplus plutonium. NNSA's plan was to: Convert much of it into a plutonium oxide powder in New Mexico Ship the powder to South Carolina for dilution Ship diluted oxide back to New Mexico for disposal These plans are uncertain because of competing demands at the conversion facility. Also, shipments to South Carolina may be...

The Cold War arms race created a buildup of nuclear waste in the United States that needs to be cleaned up. This almost-30-year-old effort will take another 70 years and cost about $500 billion more. Yet the Department of Energy program responsible for this effort categorizes most of its work in a way that does not adequately involve independent experts and DOE senior leadership. It also has not...

Many children aged 17 and under work to develop independence or meet financial needs. However, working can sometimes interfere with education, or in some industries, be physically dangerous. We found that the majority of work-related fatalities occur among children working in agriculture—but data on children's work-related injuries in general is incomplete. The Department of Labor is conductin...

As part of its commitment to nonproliferation, the United States is planning to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium. The Department of Energy is looking into whether this plutonium could be diluted and disposed of at a geologic repository for defense waste in New Mexico. Since this repository can only accept a limited amount of such waste, we recommended that the department devel...

90% of the nuclear waste in tanks at the Department of Energy's site in Hanford, WA is low-activity waste—it is much less radioactive than high-level waste. To solidify low-activity waste for safe disposal, it can be mixed with molten glass (used for high-level waste; costs more) or grout (costs less). DOE plans to treat up to 1/2 of this low-activity waste with glass, but hasn't decided abo...

Power plants in 33 states store nearly 80,000 metric tons of radioactive waste. In 2008, the Department of Energy applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build an underground repository for this waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. In 2010, DOE reversed course and said Yucca Mountain was no longer a workable option. DOE and NRC then took steps such as eliminating funding and vacating NRC's...

Based on its prior work, GAO found three key challenges related to the transportation of spent nuclear fuel: legislative, technical, and societal.Legislative challenges . As GAO reported in November 2009, August 2012, and October 2014, DOE does not have clear legislative authority for either consolidated interim storage or for permanent disposal at a site other than Yucca Mountain. Specifically, p...

Spent nuclear fuel—the used fuel removed from nuclear power reactors—is expected to accumulate at an average rate of about 2,200 metric tons per year in the United States. This spent nuclear fuel is mostly stored wet, submerged in pools of water. However, since pools have been reaching their capacities, owners and generators of spent nuclear fuel (typically utilities and reactor operators) hav...

Spent nuclear fuel--considered very hazardous--is accumulating at commercial reactor sites in 33 states. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to dispose of this waste in a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In June 2008, DOE submitted a license application for the repository, but in March 2010 moved to withdraw it. However, the Nuclear Regulat...

The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) manages the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and supports nonproliferation efforts. DOE's Office of Environmental Management addresses contamination at nuclear weapons production sites. We testified that NNSA’s plans to modernize its nuclear weapons do not align with its budget, raising affordability concerns DOE's...

In November 2009, GAO reported on the attributes and challenges of a Yucca Mountain repository. A key attribute identified was that the Department of Energy (DOE) had spent significant resources to carry out design, engineering, and testing activities on the Yucca Mountain site and had completed a license application and submitted it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has regulatory autho...

The amount of spent fuel stored on-site at commercial nuclear reactors will continue to accumulate—increasing by about 2,000 metric tons per year and likely more than doubling to about 140,000 metric tons—before it can be moved off-site, because storage or disposal facilities may take decades to develop. In examining centralized storage or permanent disposal options, GAO found that new f...

More demand for electricity and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions have increased interest in nuclear power, which does not rely on fossil fuels. However, concerns remain about the radioactive spent fuel that nuclear reactors generate. The Department of Energy (DOE) issued a research and development (R&D) plan to select nuclear fuel cycles and technologies, some of which reprocess spent fuel...

The United States has generated over 75,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste--extremely hazardous substances--at 80 sites in 35 states and is expected to more than double that amount by 2055. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) required the Department of Energy (DOE) to investigate a geologic repository for nuclear waste. In 1987, Congress amended NWPA to dire...

The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for storing and managing a total of about 13,000 metric tons of nuclear waste--spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste--at five DOE sites in Colorado, Idaho, New York, South Carolina, and Washington. Also, a joint DOE-Navy program stores spent nuclear fuel from warships at DOE's Idaho site. DOE and the Navy int...

High-level nuclear waste--one of the nation's most hazardous substances--is accumulating at 80 sites in 35 states. The United States has generated 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste and is expected to generate 153,000 metric tons by 2055. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to dispose of the waste in a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, ab...

The Department of Energy (DOE) spends billions of dollars annually to clean up nuclear waste at sites across the nation that produced nuclear weapons from the 1940s through the end of the Cold War. This waste can threaten public health and the environment. For example, contaminants at DOE's Hanford site in Washington have migrated through the soil into the groundwater, which generally flows toward...

The Department of Energy (DOE) manages over 100 construction projects with estimated costs over $90 billion and 97 nuclear waste cleanup projects with estimated costs over $230 billion. DOE has about 14,000 employees to oversee the work of more than 93,000 contractor employees. Due to DOE's history of inadequate oversight and management of contractors, GAO continues to include DOE contract and pro...