A solution for nuclear waste from power plants could finally be moving forward after the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly May 10 to authorize continued licensing of Yucca Mountain as well as interim waste storage.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded that a proposed permanent repository for spent
nuclear fuel and high-level radio-
active waste beneath Nevada’s Yucca Mountain will have minimal impacts on groundwater and surface groundwater discharges.
A scheduled drilling effort to construct a test borehole in the deep shale formations of North Dakota is one of the first moves in the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s formal effort to develop new nuclear storage options for low-level radioactive waste fuel from nuclear powerplants, now often housed on-site in temporary facilities, such as cooling ponds and aboveground concrete casks.
