An anti-nuclear advocacy group is asking the Supreme Court to back its challenge against federal authorization of off-site storage for tens of thousands of metric tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants.
The new petition is the latest attempt to get the high court to address how the nation should store its radioactive waste as Congress has yet to approve a permanent national repository, and lawmakers’ plans to move spent fuel to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain have floundered.
Advocacy groups and others have strongly opposed the alternative under consideration by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — allowing private companies to indefinitely store waste far from power plants in above-ground storage containers. Critics of the plans say the approach poses a host of environmental risks, including from the transport of highly radioactive spent fuel across waterways and rail lines across the country.
In its petition to the Supreme Court, Beyond Nuclear is claiming that the NRC improperly granted a conditional license for a privately owned facility to one day store up to 173,600 metric tons of both private and federally owned spent nuclear fuel at Holtec International’s planned facility in southeastern New Mexico.
