“Yucca mountain is dead”: The challenge of nuclear waste governance in the United States

Abstract

The United States faces unique and complex challenges in relation to the management of its large volume of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). This is due in part to the especially long history and large-scale nature of the country’s nuclear research and power generation programs. Radioactive waste has been generated for more than half a century in connection with both civilian and military activities (and has been managed under a bifurcated system of separate civilian and military management procedures).