Development and operation of a more suitable
storage solution for spent nuclear fuel must be ad-
dressed. Today spent fuel is maintained locally at
each nuclear energy facility. From a safety and secu-
rity perspective, it is difficult to justify this situation.
To address this issue, billions of dollars have been
spent developing a centralized long term storage loca-
tion at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This project is not
supported by President Obama and has seen its 2011
federal funding nearly zeroed (Tetreault 2010). Direct
instructions related to this “back-end” of the nuclear
fuel cycle were provided by the President to the Blue
Ribbon Commission (Obama 2010d).
Sustainability Considerations
The WNA reports that as of May 29, 2011, there
have been 14498 reactor-years of worldwide experi-
ence in producing civil nuclear power (WNA 2011d),
and during this 50-plus year history there have been
three major reactor accidents: Three Mile Island, Cher-
nobyl, and Fukushima. The WNA summarizes: “One
was contained without harm to anyone, the next in-
volved an intense fire without provision for contain-
ment, and the third severely tested the containment,
allowing minor release of radioactivity” (WNA 2011e).
Based on these data, one might assert that nuclear en-
ergy has demonstrated a track record of sustainability
with regard to public health and safety at appropriate
risk levels, especially relative to risks associated with
other means of energy production and usage. Once
again public and political will are greatly, and rightly,
swayed by health and safety considerations. An educa-
tion and communications effort to rightly inform each
is needed. An expansion of the U.S. fleet of nuclear re-