DOE to withdraw application for Yucca Mountain

The Engineering News Record (ENR.com) reports that the "U.S. Dept. of Energy is withdrawing its Nuclear Regulatory Commission application for a waste-storage facility in southern Nevada’s Yucca Mountain."  [right, Yucca Mountain site. Credit DOE]

They state that DOE will formally withdraw the application by the end of the month. The Obama Administration had previously cut funding and eliminated it in the FY11 federal budget, but the application processed had continued on.  This new step will shut down the facility as a nuclear waste storage site.   Wastes will continue to be stored where they are generated.

[disclosure:  my wife is a consulting engineering seismologist who has worked on Yucca Mountain for many years but has not been active on the project for the past year]