The long-stalled plan to stash radioactive waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is set to be revived with the arrival of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington and the departure of the project's most ardent Senate opponent, Harry Reid.
Two people familiar with Trump's transition planning say the issue is actively being discussed by advisers as a wave of nuclear power plant retirements intensifies pressure to find a permanent home for more than 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste now stored at those facilities. They spoke anonymously because they weren't authorized to discuss Trump's plans.
Reid, the senior senator of Nevada, is retiring from the Senate, where he successfully used his influence as the top Democratic official in the chamber to block a decades-long effort to turn a desert ridge 90 miles (145 km) north of Las Vegas into an underground repository for spent nuclear fuel from power plants.