Yucca Mountain
Yucca Mountain is a repository facility operated by US Department of Energy in United States. It has a capacity of 70,000 tHM total as of 2008.
Two decades of work and billions of dollars, and no waste was ever emplaced. Congress designated the site in 1987, the licence application went to the NRC in 2008, and funding was withdrawn in 2010. The United States has the largest spent fuel inventory in the world and no disposal route for it; the fuel sits in dry casks at reactor sites, and the federal government pays damages to utilities for failing to take it.
| Stage | Geological disposal |
|---|---|
| Operator | US Department of Energy |
| Country | United States |
| Capacity | 70,000tHM total |
| Figure applies to | 2008 |
| Note on the figure | Statutory limit set by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Never used. |
| Status | closed |
| Commissioned | not stated |
| Coordinates | 36.8500, -116.4300 |
No disclosed capacity, so its share of world repository capacity cannot be stated.
US Department of Energy also operates:
- Savannah River Site HEU downblending (haleu)
- Idaho National Laboratory EBR-II downblending (haleu)
- Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (repository)
Other repository facilities
| Facility | Capacity | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Wolsong LILW Disposal Center, Gyeongju | 800,000drums | operating |
| Konrad | 303,000m³ | construction |
| Asse II | 47,000m³ | closed |
| Morsleben (ERAM) | 37,000m³ | closed |
| Onkalo | not disclosed | construction |
| Forsmark spent fuel repository (KBS-3) | not disclosed | construction |
| Cigéo | not disclosed | planned |
| Canadian deep geological repository | not disclosed | planned |
| Nördlich Lägern | not disclosed | planned |
| Waste Isolation Pilot Plant | not disclosed | operating |
| SFR, Forsmark | not disclosed | operating |
| Olkiluoto VLJ repository | not disclosed | operating |
| Loviisa VLJ repository | not disclosed | operating |
| Centre de l'Aube (CSA) | not disclosed | operating |
| El Cabril | not disclosed | operating |
| Low Level Waste Repository, Drigg | not disclosed | operating |
| Rokkasho LLW Disposal Center | not disclosed | operating |
| Bátaapáti National Radioactive Waste Repository | not disclosed | operating |
| Yeniseisky underground research laboratory, Krasnoyarsk | not disclosed | construction |
| Beishan underground research laboratory | not disclosed | construction |
Sources
- World Nuclear Association, Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste · retrieved 2026-09-06
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data