High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLRW)

 Fact Sheet: Unsolved Radioactive Waste Problem

Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors. Endorsed by over 150 national and grassroots groups across the U.S., this statement calls for waste storage pools -- at catastrophic risk from attacks or accidents -- to be unloaded into hardened on-site storage.

July 9, 2007 report by Mark Holt at Congressional Research Service entitled "Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal," providing an update on Bush administration DOE as well as congressional initiatives on HLRW, including Yucca Mountain and reprocessing legislation. 

Dec. 21, 2004 report by Anthony Andrews at Congressional Research Service entitled "Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Locations and Inventory," reporting that irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste is mostly stored at 83 locations across the U.S., including reactor storage pools, outdoor dry cask storage sites, DOE national labs, and DOE nuclear weapons sites. Additional sites include university research and training reactors. The 104 operating commercial reactors in 31 states annually generate an average of 2,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel. The total national inventory was about 54,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel at the end of 2004 [nearly 60,000 metric tons by the end of 2008].