Storage of nuclear waste ?

Does all the nuclear waste generated in the U. S. go to one location? Nevada?

France must generate quite a bit. Where does their’s go?

What about Russia?

Currently, nuclear waste is stored (if my google skills are accurate) in 131 different locations spread across 39 states. The plan is that eventually all of it will be stored in Yucca Mountain in Nevada starting around the year 2017. The original deadline was 1998 so don’t put too much faith in that date.

This site has information about France’s nuclear waste programs:
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml

France also supposedly ships a lot of nuclear waste to Russia, but this is all “secret” so that there won’t be any debate about it, according to Greenpeace.
Here’s an article about it:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31466

Russia keeps most of their nuclear waste on site at the plants that generate it, but they are currently studying doing something similar to a central site like Yucca Mountain.

Interesting. Might you (or anyone else) know how much waste (by volume and/or weight) is created over a specific period of time by one reactor? How much is created by nuclear-powered ships, such as an aircraft carrier?

Just trying to get a handle on how much of a challenge is the storage of this waste.

Indeed since Obama has pulled the plug on the Yucca Mountain site. A decision which Senator Mark Sanford has said he will sue the Obama administration over if he does not change his mind. No clue how it will all play out but clearly it is in limbo now.

As to the follow-up question I do not know a reactor-by-reactor breakdown of how much waste is produced but I read that there is currently 70,000 tons in storage all over the US today and the US produces about 2,000 tons of nuclear waste per year (cite).

Currently it’s kept on the site of each nuclear power plant (if we are talking about high level waste…other waste is disposed of in other locations, stuff like medical waste and such) The plan was to have a central repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the last I heard Obama has (again) squashed this, or at least put it on hold (again).

Here is a site that talks about the amount of waste generated in the US a year:

-XT

To add the Yucca Mountain site has a proposed capacity limit of 63,000 tons. According to the Wiki article on this that capacity would be reached by 2014. If the CNN link above is to be believed seems we are past that already.

You might also be interested in this article from some guy named Cecil. A lot of folks around here think he’s really smart.
Could a year’s waste from a nuclear power plant be stored under a desk?