Storage Problem Looms On Nuclear Waste Fuel; Clinton May Have to Make Disposal Decision
It is a no-win issue that politicians and regulators would prefer to defer, but disparate events may force the Clinton administration to decide how to dispose of radioactive waste fuel from nuclear power plants.</br></br>More than 20,000 tons of highly radioactive used fuel is stored in pools of water adjacent to the nation's 112 nuclear power plants, and the stockpile grows each time a utility refuels. Congress decreed that the material be buried deep below ground in a repository to be built by the Energy Department and specified that Yucca Mountain, Nev., be the only site evaluated.</br></br>Even if Yucca Mountain proves suitable, the repository cannot be ready before 2010, according to the Energy Department. But the law requires the Energy Department to take ownership of the waste beginning in 1998; meanwhile, some nuclear utilities are running out of storage space.</br></br>Congress, however, is reluctant to revise the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which created the Yucca Mountain program, because legislators from every state other than Nevada fear their states could become targets.</br></br>This situation has developed over several years, but recent events have added a sense of urgency to the issue, which dominated the conversation at Hazel R. O'Leary's confirmation hearing as energy secretary.