The United States still has no plan for permanently storing more than 94,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants, despite a 1998 deadline that required the federal Department of Energy (DOE) to have a facility available to accept the waste. House members of the Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security rehashed the costly problem in a hearing this week, finding bipartisan agreement that the problem must be solved, but they did not define any real solutions.
The nation’s first nuclear power plant, in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, went online in 1957, with many more having gone into operation since. Some have completed their life cycles and no longer have operating reactors. But with no permanent storage, spent fuel from these reactors is being stored at 75 sites in 34 states, and continues to accumulate by about 2,000 tons a year. The expense of temporary storage and security for spent fuel was not factored into the planning stages when these nuclear plants were built. The government promised to have a plan….
