High-Level Nuclear Waste Facility (Yucca Mountain)
$1.2 billion

BackgroundMultiple technical, environmental and cost barriers plague the Yucca Mountain High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository. New findings suggest that one Yucca Mountain site under study for a permanent high-level nuclear waste repository will be unable to isolate nuclear waste. At a projected cost of $34 billion dollars, the project would roll back health, safety and environmental standards. If legislation proposed by Congress passes, the current funding shortfall of $4 to $8 billion for this project will escalate to more than $25 billion, for which taxpayers will be entirely liable.

Green Scissors ProposalThe DOE's Program Plan and revision of repository guidelines should be stopped, pending an external review of the program.

Project Hurts TaxpayersThe waste program record is dismal. The General Accounting Office, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, and numerous independent analysts have called for a program review. If scientifically credible procedures are not followed, the Yucca Mountain project could cost more than $34 billion.

Project Hurts EnvironmentYucca Mountain is seismically active. Nuclear waste stays dangerously radioactive for over 10,000 years. The Yucca Mountain site is the least stable of any site considered thus far. The site is cut by 33 known earthquake faults, and has been jolted with a 5.6 magnitude earthquake. New evidence that water travels through Yucca Mountain much faster than expected — passing through the site in 50 years rather than 10,000 years — suggests that the site may not isolate nuclear waste from the environment, which is the goal of a repository.