Trump Eyes 5 States for Future Nuclear Waste Storage

The Trump administration has quietly narrowed its search for new nuclear waste sites to five states. The Energy Department on Tuesday said it has struck preliminary agreements with Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho to study whether they could host long-term storage facilities—so-called "Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses"—for spent nuclear fuel "in exchange for federal help developing nuclear energy," per the AP. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the five were picked from 28 applications from 26 states, reports the Hill.

• Nuclear power has enjoyed bipartisan backing, but a permanent answer for high-level waste has eluded Washington for decades, with the long-planned Yucca Mountain site in Nevada stalled amid fierce local resistance. (Indeed, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto hailed the news by saying, "I am glad to see the Trump administration take a step toward acknowledging what Nevadans have known for years: Yucca Mountain is dead.")
• More than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste is currently stored at nuclear plants and former nuclear sites nationwide. "The new storage sites would move the radioactive material away from population centers, fault lines, and flood plains," per the AP.
• In addition to the waste sites, the campuses would handle uranium enrichment, spent-fuel reprocessing, and fuel fabrication, and may also host advanced reactor deployment, power generation, and data centers.
• The Energy Department estimates the campuses could generate as much as $10 billion in state and local tax revenues.