"With the issuance of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in February 2007 the world faces the stark reality that it must reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately or face dire consequences. Nuclear energy provides a reliable source of carbon dioxide–free electricity, and a global expansion of nuclear power could replace fossil-fuel fired plants significantly within twenty to fifty years. One of the main impediments to the expansion of nuclear energy is the unresolved problem of what to do with the nuclear waste. Though nuclear power has been with us almost fifty years, to date, not one of the 30 countries with nuclear power plants has opened a nuclear waste repository...."

Testimony of Allison M. Macfarlane for the Environment and Public Works Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing on the Status of the Yucca Mountain Project, March 1, 2006

Both Russia and the United States are faced with decisions on how to dispose of plutonium and highly enriched uranium recovered from dismantled warheads, and from various nuclear weapons facilities. In the U.S., the Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that 50 or more metric tonnes (MT) of weapons plutonium and hundreds of metric tonnes of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) will be considered "excess." Disposition of these materials is essential for national and international security reasons.

Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Safe, Flexible, and Cost-Effective Near-Term Approach to Spent Fuel Management

Spent-FuelStandard for Disposition of ExcessWeaponPlutonium: Application to Current DOE Options

Russia and the United States face an enormous and urgent post-Cold War task: converting their vast plutonium surpluses into a form that is relatively safe from theft by terrorists and from reuse (should either country attempt to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile).