A: The Energy Department must submit a license application to the NRC. This application initiates a three-phase licensing process wherein DOE seeks separate approvals to construct, operate and finally close the repository at Yucca Mountain. DOE plans to submit the application to the NRC by June 2008, an important milestone toward building the repository. If the NRC approves the application, DOE anticipates opening the repository at Yucca Mountain sometime between 2017 and 2021.
This licensing process will ensure the best available science always is applied to the long-term protection of public safety.

Progress on the license application has continued despite a 2004 federal appeals court decision that called into question the 10,000-year radiation protection standard for Yucca Mountain. In August 2005, EPA proposed a revised standard and is expected to finalize the standard in the near future. Work on the Yucca Mountain project now includes additional studies to address evaluation of time frames up to 1 million years, as called for in the proposed EPA standard.

NRC licensing rules require long-term monitoring of repository performance so that future scientific advances can be applied to the protection of public health and safety. These rules also require that DOE maintain the capability to retrieve material from the repository, if found necessary in the course of this long-term monitoring program.

Q:  What is the relationship between the Yucca Mountain project and U.S. government plans to recycle and reuse nuclear fuel with advanced technology?

A:  The ability to retrieve the used fuel would allow DOE to employ advanced recycling technologies to derive additional energy from the material. Recycling the material using the advanced technologies could significantly reduce the volume of remaining byproducts that DOE must deposit in the repository, as no technology can remove all of the radioactivity from the waste.

The head of the Yucca Mountain project at DOE, Ward Sproat, has said the facility’s license application will include methods for disposing of the byproducts of advanced recycling in the repository.