Nuclear Waste

(Runtime 1:13)Northwest researchers have discovered that turtle shells can help track radioactive material through time — like “walking tree rings.”…

(Runtime 4:00)On a warm evening last month, Yakama Nation leaders and environmentalists got together to eat giant crab legs, salmon and cheesecake – and…

Congress recently allocated more than two billion dollars for cleaning up the Hanford site. Correspondent Lauren Paterson reports the funding is…

At Hanford, a hazardous concoction of radioactive waste and chemicals sits in World War II and Cold War-era tanks. Now one of those old tanks has a serious leak.

Ongoing Superfund cleanup work of radioactive and other contamination at the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho has been successful at protecting humans and the environment, U.S. and state officials say. The five-year review by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality also said that potential exposures in areas that aren’t yet cleaned up are being controlled.

The partially melted reactor core from the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history could remain in Idaho for another 20 years if regulators finalize a license extension sought by the U.S. Energy Department, officials said Monday.

Radioactive waste shipped to Idaho during the Cold War has been compacted and sent out of state for permanent disposal, officials said Wednesday.

The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, site of the nation's worst nuclear accident, will shut down by the end of September. Backers failed to secure subsidies to keep the plant operating.

As nuclear and radioactive waste piles up, private companies are stepping in with their own solutions for the nation’s radioactive spent fuel. One is proposing a temporary storage site in New Mexico, and another is seeking a license for a site in Texas. But most experts agree that what’s needed is a permanent site, like Yucca Mountain, that doesn’t require humans to manage it.

As coal plants retire across the country, Portland-based NuScale Power wants to replace some of that electricity with its small-scale nuclear plants. Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems wants to build a 720-megawatt nuclear plant at the Idaho National Laboratory site in Idaho Falls.