The Obama administration announced Thursday that it wants to terminate the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site that has been delayed for years.
The administration proposed to spend $197 million to phase out the project planned for a site about 90 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada.
"All funding for development of the (Yucca Mountain) facility would be eliminated, such as further land acquisition, transportation access, and additional engineering," the administration said in its proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1.
Currently, millions of pounds of radioactive waste from 104 nuclear reactors are stored at 121 temporary locations in 39 different states.
Yucca Mountain was to provide a single, federally managed repository for this waste, as well as for leftovers from the country’s nuclear weapons program. But cost overruns and political opposition have stalled the project indefinitely.
The White House budget 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."
The administration said Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu intends to create a blue ribbon commission of experts to come up with alternative storage ideas.
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