WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Thursday that his department is now considering short-term options for storage of nuclear waste since President Obama does not support moving forward with the planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
The department will consider solidifying liquid radioactive waste that is currently held at 121 locations across the nation, as the government works to develop a permanent solution for safe nuclear waste disposal. Chu said the department could solidify waste at current sites without environmental risk.
"The interim storage of waste with solidification is something we can do today," Chu told lawmakers at a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
"That buys us time to formulate a comprehensive plan for how we deal with nuclear waste," he added.
The Obama administration in its budget proposal last week essentially shelved the long-delayed Yucca Mountain waste project, scaling back funding to only cover the costs to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Obama's former presidential rival, Senator John McCain, blasted the administration's decision to remove Yucca Mountain as an option for nuclear waste storage.
"So now we're going to have spent nuclear fuel sitting around in pools all over America," McCain said at the hearing. "It also tells the nuclear power industry that we have no way of either reprocessing or storing spent nuclear fuel around America."
(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
