It is by no means simple to understand the Federal efforts to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear waste repository. The summary alone of the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact Statement is 100 pages - not to mention the hundreds of reports developed by local and international bodies on the storage and impacts of nuclear material at underground facilities.
The fact is, during the past 50 years, humanity has created high-level nuclear waste, that will remain deadly for at least 10 millennia. As Nevada and the world face the prospect of how to contain it KNPR will continue to bring you updates on the subject. KNPR's Ky Plaskon takes a snapshot of the economics behind the project in the first of a three part series on how Nevada and the world are coping with high-level nuclear waste.