AP - ...For more than 25 years, the Energy Department has pursued plans to bury at least 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel in tunnels bored beneath an ancient volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The NRC panel noted Tuesday that $10 billion had been spent on the project to date. Estimates have projected the total cost at more than $90 billion over 100 years.
Opponents have raised concerns about air, water and soil contamination. Nevada state officials and attorneys argue the technology for entombing radioactive material for eons isn't fully proved, and that transporting waste from more than 100 nuclear power plants and sites around the country could be catastrophically dangerous.
Obama in January appointed former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to head a commission to recommend alternatives.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission legal panel put a proposal for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada back on track Tuesday, at least until the full commission decides whether the Department of Energy can withdraw its plan.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu doesn't have the authority to pull the plug on a process that Congress started when it passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982, the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board said in a 47-page order issued in Rockville, Md.. Read on at AP
