Yucca Mountain
Capacity
70,000tHM total
Yucca Mountain is a repository facility 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 Congress designated the site in 1987, the licence application went to the NRC in 2008, and funding was withdrawn in 2010.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.
Facility
| Stage | Back end |
|---|---|
| Operator | not stated |
| 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 |
Position in the chain
No disclosed capacity, so its share of world repository capacity cannot be stated.
Other repository facilities
| Facility | Capacity | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
Sources
- World Nuclear Association, Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste · retrieved 2026-09-06