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I now understand why history repeats itself!
140,000+ tons of (reported) spent fuel laying around in the US alone, and continually making aprox 2,000 tons every year. The last major storage proposal, Yucca mountain, was squashed in 2009. Currently over 75% of the spent fuel is stored in cooling ponds waiting to be dealt with. The government is estimating that once a suitable location is located that it would take 15-40 years of work to develop it. Once an off-site facility is available, it will take several more decades to ship spent fuel to that facility. This situation will be challenging because by about 2040 most currently operating reactors will have ceased operations, and options for managing spent fuel, if needed to meet transportation, storage, or disposal requirements, may be limited.
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