"Panel on Nuclear Waste Disposal to Propose Above-Ground Storage"

"WASHINGTON — A commission created to help resolve the impasse over the disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste will propose establishing one or more sites where used reactor fuel could be stored in steel and concrete structures on the earth’s surface for decades, members of the commission said this week.

A draft recommendation for such sites is to be discussed on Friday at a meeting of the panel, which was set up last year by the Department of Energy after President Obama canceled a longstanding plan to bury waste at Yucca Mountain, a site in the Nevada desert.

The commission will also recommend opening a new effort to find a burial site, members said, and suggest that it be led by an organization that is independent of the Department of Energy, which has been working on the waste disposal effort for decades."

Matthew L. Wald reports for the New York Times May 12, 2011.