> Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. Ideally it would be. But in many cases in practice, that isn't the case, because those facilities have ei

> Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. Ideally it would be. But in many cases in practice, that isn't the case, because those facilities have either not been built, or not opened. In the U.S., since the long-planned Yucca Mountain facility has never opened, most nuclear waste is stored on-site at the reactor complex, in above-ground facilities. For the first few years it's immersed in cooling pools [1], and then subsequently is parked in metal/concrete cylinders [2]. This is considered interim storage awaiting final burial in geologically stable vaults, but without Yucca Mountain the "interim" storage has become de-facto permanent. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage