WASHINGTON - Nuclear waste should be kept at the reactors where it is produced until the planned Yucca Mountain storage site opens, the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters Wednesday.
Some have suggested energy companies ship waste to the Nevada site to be held above ground until proposed underground storage opens there in 2017, at the earliest. But Chairman Dale Klein said keeping byproducts from reactions at the facilities is a good temporary solution.
"We need to solve the waste issue, whether there are new plants or not," Klein said. "As a nation we need to solve that problem. How we solve it is obviously a technical and a policy issue. But for our job as the licensing [agency], there is a temporary solution and at-reactor storage is safe, certified and licensed."
For two decades, the federal government has tangled with states' rights group and environmentalists about burying nuclear waste in the desert about 90 miles (150 km) northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department plans to turn in an application for a license to build on the site to the commission in June 2008, Klein said. By then, the commission expects the country to rely more on nuclear energy.
In September Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, introduced a bill that would authorize the Energy Department to build an above-ground depot on the site.
But Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada poised to be Senate Majority Leader, has said he will introduce legislation requiring waste be stored at reactors.
Story by Lisa Lambert
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
