The United States is home to 21 “stranded” nuclear-waste storage sites, according to a congressional researcher who was quick to add that “stranded does not imply that the waste has been abandoned or lacks regulatory oversight.”
It means those 21 sites are no longer attached to reactors that are producing electricity or revenue, environmental policy analyst Lance N. Larson writes in a May report to members of Congress. The stranded sites are costly for the federal government, which has spent $7.4 billion to nuclear utilities and other reactor owners, according to CRS, to offset its responsibility to store the waste.
