Biden Administration Targets Job-Poor Areas In Search For Places To Store Nuclear Waste

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st December, 2021) The US is counting on the prospect of new jobs in a bid to find communities willing to store nuclear waste from power plants and weapons facilities, the Energy Department (DOE) said on Tuesday.

"We know there are real benefits from jobs to new infrastructure that will result in interest in areas across the country. The public's input is central to identifying those locations to make this process as inclusive and effective as possible," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a press release.

In 2010, local opposition forced the Energy Department to abandon plans dating back to the 1980s for permanent storage of radioactive waste at an underground site in the state of Nevada.

With Nevada off limits, the department on Tuesday began a new search for what the release called "interim" storage sites, with a solicitation seeking responses by March 5.

The recently approved $1 trillion infrastructure bill includes funding for nuclear waste storage, with the Biden administration citing atomic energy as a key element of plans to create a carbon-free US economy by 2050, the release said.

The release added that DOE is committed to the consent-based siting approach that makes communities and people central in the process to give the nation its best chance at success in solving the nation's decades-long stalemate.

Spent nuclear fuel, which remains radioactive for centuries, is currently stored on a not-so-temporary basis at power plants and weapons facilities throughout the US.