Yucca Mountain

Yucca Mountain is a ridge of welded volcanic tuff in southern Nevada that was studied and developed by the U.S. Department of Energy as the proposed national repository for high-level radioactive waste. The site was designated by federal policy in 1987 and became the focus of multi-decade scientific and regulatory study.

The area includes surface facilities and an Underground Exploratory Studies Facility with tunnels and boreholes used to characterize geology, hydrology and engineered-barrier concepts. The proposed plan called for horizontal emplacement drifts bored into the mountain to hold waste packages.

The project went through decades of environmental study and licensing work; a license application was submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008, and the Department of Energy subsequently withdrew the application in 2010, leaving the site undeveloped as an operational repository.

Yucca Mountain is located in Nye County in southern Nevada, roughly northwest of Las Vegas on federal lands adjoining the Nevada Test and training areas; access is controlled and the area remains the subject of federal and state policy discussions.

• Policy status: The site was designated by U.S. policy in 1987 as the primary candidate for a national high-level nuclear waste repository; a formal license application was filed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008 before DOE withdrew the application in 2010.
• Geology and climate: The mountain is composed primarily of welded volcanic tuff in an arid desert climate, factors central to evaluations of long-term isolation performance.

What to See #

• Exploratory Studies Facility: The Exploratory Studies Facility consists of subsurface test tunnels and boreholes driven into the tuff to evaluate geology, hydrology and suitability for waste emplacement.
• Surface facilities: Surface facilities and service roads were built to support field studies and monitoring; many remain as part of the project infrastructure.
• Proposed repository drifts: The planned repository layout included horizontal emplacement tunnels driven into a ridge of welded volcanic tuff, intended to host engineered waste packages in multiple drifts.