U.S. President Barack Obama formally asked Congress yesterday to halt decades-old plans to build a long-term nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Reuters reported (see GSN, April 30).
"All funding for development of the (Yucca Mountain) facility would be eliminated, such as further land acquisition, transportation access and additional engineering," the administration's fiscal 2010 energy budget request states.
The Obama administration requested $197 million to shutter the project and "explore alternatives" for handling the nation's nuclear waste. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is expected to establish a blue-ribbon panel that would assess various waste storage proposals and counsel the administration on which to pursue, according to the White House.
The Yucca Mountain site was intended to hold millions of pounds of hazardous waste from U.S. nuclear weapons work and atomic energy production. There are now 121 sites in 39 U.S. states that hold high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel on an interim basis, according to Reuters.
The budget proposal states "that nuclear power is -- and likely will remain -- an important source of electricity for many years to come and that how the nation deals with the dangerous byproduct of nuclear reactors is a critical question that has yet to be resolved" (Tom Doggett, Reuters, May 7).