The Department of Energy (DOE) is legally responsible for permanently removing highly radioactive used fuel from nuclear plant sites in the United States. They have failed to meet that obligation and now say it could be decades before they will remove the fuel.

At the permanently shutdown Yankee Rowe nuclear plant in Western Massachusetts, the used fuel is stored in airtight, stainless steel shipping canisters placed inside steel-lined concrete casks. The fuel will be stored on the Yankee Rowe site until it is removed by the DOE.

This storage system is a dual-purpose system that not only safely stores the fuel in stainless steel canisters inside heavy steel-lined concrete structures, but also packages the fuel for transport. The stainless steel fuel canisters are designed to be removed from the steel-lined concrete casks and placed inside a specially designed shipping container for transport to a federal facility such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada.