U.S. formally applies for nuclear dump at Yucca

The EPA had issued a standard designed to be protective for 10,000 years.

But a federal court said it was inadequate and that agency must establish a standard shown to be protective for up to 1 million years — the time some of the isotopes in the waste will remain dangerous. The EPA has yet to produce that document.

Bodman said he didn’t think that was a problem. The NRC, which has three years to review the application, can accept it later as an amendment but must have it to make its final determination.

The NRC’s primary job will be to determine whether the proposed repository’s design will protect public health, safety and the environment for up to a million years.

NRC Chairman Dale Klein promised a review “entirely on technical merits” and said the agency “will perform an independent, rigorous and thorough examination to determine whether the repository can safely house the nation’s high level waste.”

If the application is approved, it will take seven to eight years to build the facility, Sproat said.

President Bush gave the go-ahead for the Yucca waste repository six years ago. It is being designed to hold 77,000 tons of waste, mostly used reactor fuel from nuclear power plants.

About $6 billion has been spent in research and engineering at the Nevada site, including construction of a tunnel deep into the volcanic rock where the canisters of used reactor fuel are to be placed. The Energy Department estimates the lifetime cost of the facility will be between $70 billion and $80 billion.

The federal government under a 1982 law is contractually required to accept the spent fuel from commercial power plants and was to have had a central repository available for fuel shipments by 1998, a deadline already a decade overdue.

This year Congress provided $386.5 million for the program, $108 million less than the Bush administration had wanted as it geared up for submitting its application for a construction license. In 2007 the project received $444 million.

Reid and other Nevada officials say the waste ought to stay where it is until the best long-term solution for dealing with it can be determined.

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