Joshua (Josh) Clark

And so I think you said the first one was sealed up in 1986?

Yeah.

So we're at 40 years, essentially, already ticking off the clock for those earliest dry casks that were sealed, which when you start to think of it like that, like it makes this like getting to a solution of what to do long-term, permanent storage, essentially.

Yeah.

That that how how important it is to do it as soon as possible, because if we don't figure out exactly how to do it and then start building it, that 60 years is going to come and go quicker than we think.

That's a long time to design something that's one of probably the most persistent problems that the world faces environmentally spent nuclear fuel.

Yeah, the big problem is, is in 1987, Congress said Yucca Mountain is the only site that the DOE and the NRC can use to dispose of nuclear waste.

You can't put it anywhere else geologically for long-term storage.

And then they never went back and said, well, since we're not going to put it at Yucca Mountain, we'll do it here instead.

So it's just totally in limbo.

So in the interim, literally these interim storage sites, like you said, in Texas and New Mexico, that's kind of the next big hope after the dry casks.

I think the one in New Mexico will be capable of containing 120,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, which is a lot, especially considering that the U.S.

has only about 90,000 tons of spent fuel total.

But we're also adding about 2,000 tons a year.

So in 15 years, New Mexico would be full up.

So, again, you kind of see how this clock is ticking because it's not like anyone's saying, well, let's wait on nuclear power any further until we figure out what to do with this.

It's just a go, go, go swinging kind of industry, you know?

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