U.S. Holds $50 Billion for Nuclear Waste but Lacks a Repository

At Finland’s Onkalo facility, spent fuel will be sealed in copper canisters and buried 400 meters (1,312 feet) beneath bedrock, with shock-absorbing clay around them. The canisters are designed to contain the waste for 100,000 years. Onkalo can hold up to 6,500 tonnes (7,200 tons) of spent fuel; once full, it will be backfilled, sealed and transferred to the Finnish government for oversight. Construction began 22 years ago, and the facility received its operating license last month.

A Washington Post opinion article described the project as both an engineering achievement and a political one, saying Finland kept its program on track for more than four decades through changes of government and maintained the support of the host municipality, Eurajoki.

In the United States, federal law designates Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the sole repository site, but Congress has not funded it for more than 15 years. About 97,000 metric tons of spent fuel are instead stored at nearly 75 sites in more than 30 states, including communities that did not consent to hosting it. Federal deadlines have repeatedly lapsed as policy shifts between administrations.

The Atlantic Council said in a report published last week that political volatility has become an energy cost, with successive administrations scrapping or overhauling predecessors’ policies. The report also said incentives tied to specific technologies can leave project economics exposed to changes in credits, grants, mandates or regulatory interpretations. Vincent Ialenti, a former Energy Department program manager, told the Washington Post that spending from the Nuclear Waste Fund requires congressional approval, calling that a precarious basis for commitments measured in decades.