For decades, the federal government has struggled with the issue of storing waste from commercial nuclear reactors and defense-related nuclear activities. The government has spent billions of dollars planning for nuclear waste disposal, but the creation of a permanent storage site is years behind schedule due to federal mismanagement and safety concerns. A new report confirms that the current proposed site, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, is safe for use.
The United States has more than 65,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel with the volume expected to double by 2055. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 aimed to create a permanent disposal site for radioactive waste by 1998. After many studies, Yucca Mountain was chosen as the single national disposal site in 1987, and engineers and construction crews went to work. Between 2001 and 2007 the project’s total life-cycle cost estimate increased from $77 billion to $106 billion, measured in constant 2012 dollars.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/report-concludes-yucca-mountain-safe
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