Potential high level nuclear waste storage site for the next 10 000 years and beyond. Discover yucca mountain repository in nye nevada. In 2006 the doe chose march 31 2017 as the opening date for the yucca mountain repository and on that day 39 states would send their spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste from the 126.
Yucca mountain about 90 miles from las vegas was selected in 1987 as the only site to be considered for a national nuclear waste repository. Transporting nuclear waste to yucca. A test tunnel was dug but never licensed.
Congress designated yucca mountain as the location for a national permanent nuclear waste repository back in 1987. But critics be concerned that groundwater in yucca mountain could corrode the canisters that store nuclear waste causing a radioactive leak. The nuclear regulatory percentage the federal agency that approves radioactive waste storage sites published a long delayed statement in deeming yucca mountain safe.
The site is located on federal land adjacent to the nevada test site in nye county nevada about 80 mi 130 km. The yucca mountain nuclear waste repository as designated by the nuclear waste policy act amendments of 1987 is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within yucca mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high level radioactive waste in the united states.
