NUCLEAR WASTE IN THE UNITED STATES STATUS OF THE WASTE TODAY The United States has used nuclear power for Commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored at more than 60 years to produce reliable, low­ reactor sites where the electricity was generated. carbon energy and for national defense activities. High­level radioactive waste and spent fuel from These activities have resulted in a build­up of national defense activities is stored at several spent nuclear fuel and high­level radioactive DOE­managed sites. While this temporary waste, currently stored at sites across the country. storage is safe in the near­term, we need a sustainable, long­term solution. SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE By far the largest inventory of spent nuclear fuel High­level radioactive waste, almost all of which comes from commercial electricity generation: was generated by defense nuclear activities, accounts for the next largest portion of the The Department estimates ~70,000 overall inventory: that continued operation of metric tons of roughly 90 million gallons of high-level waste the current fleet of nuclear * uranium liquids, sludges, and solids. power reactors could increase the total inventory of spent fuel to: The majority of high­level radioactive waste in the Department's current inventory is: ~140,000 Nearly all of this spent fuel is at the Hanford and Savannah River metric tons of being stored at the reactor sites and is planned to be (or has uranium ** sites where it was generated, already been) vitrified into a glass form either submerged in pools of at the Idaho National Laboratory in a water (wet storage) or in dry calcine form shielded casks (dry storage). at the West Valley Demonstration Project site *Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form GC­859, "Nuclear Fuel Data Survey" (2013). **Source: Carter, J. and Dennis Vinson, "Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation Planning Project Inventory Basis" (2014). energy.gov/consentbasedsiting.