Private Fuel Storage (PFS) has decided to give up on building an interim storage site for used nuclear fuel in Utah. The project was developed by 8 private utilities, which had secured land in Utah and a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build and operate the facility. Up to 40,000 tonnes of used reactor fuel were to be stored on small plot within a total facility area of 332 hectares. In 2010, the US Department of Interior (DoI) refused to approve the lease and a right-of-way to cross other Indian lands to Goshute territory.
The move leaves the USA reliant on temporary storage at power plants for the foreseeable future. The US Federal government has been in charge of used reactor fuel management since 1982 but has failed to build a centralised store; nuclear waste are currently stored on the plant's sites.
The congressionally-approved and utility funded final disposal route of Yucca Mountain was withdrawn from review by President Barack Obama and his appointees to the Department of Energy and the NRC in early 2009. In June 2012, anti-nuclear groups won a court case to force the NRC to reconsider its 'waste confidence rule' that approved storage of used fuel at reactor sites for the longer term. And now the PFS project that could have provided an alternative has also ended. This leaves America with no disposal route and no long term management strategy for highly radioactive waste.