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In the Salado salt formation a half-mile below the New Mexico desert, WIPP has room to store all the radioactive waste an expanded nuclear power program could produce. Emphasis on the word could. The "nice" elevator is right out of a luxury hotel with a smooth ride and room for 75 people. It has six degrees of safety redundancy, which means that if one cable were to snap, several others, plus an emergency brake or two, would prevent the six of us from hurtling to our deaths. But just as I'm adjusting the self-rescuer respirator on my utility belt, we get the news: There's a problem with the "nice" elevator. We have to take the salt shaft.

EnergySolutions Inc. has started airing commercials critical of a U.S. congressman who wants to prevent the company from importing Italian nuclear waste for disposal in Utah's west desert. The company is fighting a bill in Congress sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that would ban the importation of foreign low-level radioactive waste unless it originated in the U.S. or served a strategic national purpose. EnergySolutions contends jobs will be put at risk if it isn't allowed to dispose of the waste at its facility, about miles west of Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, Matheson said that any country that creates nuclear waste should dispose of it itself.

EnergySolutions Inc. has started airing commercials critical of a U.S. congressman who wants to prevent the company from importing Italian nuclear waste for disposal in Utah's west desert. The company is fighting a bill in Congress sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that would ban the importation of foreign low-level radioactive waste unless it originated in the U.S. or served a strategic national purpose. EnergySolutions contends jobs will be put at risk if it isn't allowed to dispose of the waste at its facility, about miles west of Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, Matheson said that any country that creates nuclear waste should dispose of it itself.

Attempting to safeguard the future up to at least 10,000 years, state radiation-control regulators have a new rule that will be out for public comment regarding the disposal of depleted uranium. Created specifically as a result of EnergySolutions' intentions of storing "significant" quantities of the radioactive material at its Clive facility in Tooele County, the proposed rule requires the company to conduct a performance assessment if it accepts more than 1 metric ton of depleted uranium. The rule would also mandate adjustments stemming from any new restrictions handed down by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is going through its own revisions on storing the waste.

Attempting to safeguard the future up to at least 10,000 years, state radiation-control regulators have a new rule that will be out for public comment regarding the disposal of depleted uranium. Created specifically as a result of EnergySolutions' intentions of storing "significant" quantities of the radioactive material at its Clive facility in Tooele County, the proposed rule requires the company to conduct a performance assessment if it accepts more than 1 metric ton of depleted uranium. The rule would also mandate adjustments stemming from any new restrictions handed down by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is going through its own revisions on storing the waste.

Nuclear waste could be stored permanently at up to four locations across Scotland, it has emerged. The Scottish government has launched a consultation exercise on the issue. It believes waste should be stored close to existing nuclear facilities, reducing the need for waste to be transported long distances. Scotland's civil nuclear sites are located at Dounreay, Hunterston, Chapelcross, Rosyth and Torness, near Dunbar. "

"While President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal is expected to sound a death knell for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the administration has so far failed to launch the blue-ribbon commission it promised almost a year ago to decide on a waste-disposal alternative. Hanging in the balance is 60,000 metric tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste."

U.S. reactors have generated about 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel, of which 75 percent is stored in pools, according to Nuclear Energy Institute data. Spent fuel rods give off about 1 million rems (10,00Sv) of radiation per hour at a distance of one foot - enough radiation to kill people in a matter of seconds. There are more than 30 million such rods in U.S. spent fuel pools. No other nation has generated this much radioactivity from either nuclear power or nuclear weapons production. Nearly 40 percent of the radioactivity in U.S. spent fuel is cesium-137 (4.5 billion curies) - roughly 20 times more than released from all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. U.S. spent pools hold about 15-30 times more cesium-137 than the Chernobyl accident released. For instance, the pool at the Vermont Yankee reactor, a BWR Mark I, currently holds nearly three times the amount of spent fuel stored at Dai-Ichi's crippled Unit 4 reactor. The Vermont Yankee reactor also holds about seven percent more rad

New Mexico officials and International Isotopes Inc. have reached an agreement that will limit the amount of waste that can be stored at the company's planned uranium deconversion plant in southeastern New Mexico. The company plans to build a plant near Hobbs that would convert depleted uranium into certain types of acid and gas that could be used for industrial manufacturing applications. Uranium waste would be disposed of at a licensed facility outside New Mexico. Environment Secretary Ron Curry said the agreement will protect the environment and area residents while allowing the company to operate in the state.

New Mexico officials and International Isotopes Inc. have reached an agreement that will limit the amount of waste that can be stored at the company's planned uranium deconversion plant in southeastern New Mexico. The company plans to build a plant near Hobbs that would convert depleted uranium into certain types of acid and gas that could be used for industrial manufacturing applications. Uranium waste would be disposed of at a licensed facility outside New Mexico. Environment Secretary Ron Curry said the agreement will protect the environment and area residents while allowing the company to operate in the state.