The U.S. Dept. of Energy is withdrawing its Nuclear Regulatory Commission application for a waste-storage facility in southern Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The move comes after DOE spent decades and $38 billion researching and building at the site.
Deep inside the mountain, DOE would have stored up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste from 80 sites in 35 states. Spent fuel and defense waste was to go in special containers within a network of tunnels. Government estimates put the construction cost at about $100 billion.