The Republicans who dominate Utah’s politics — from the legislature to the governor’s mansion — are aggressively pursuing nuclear power, but a problem that had confounded fission supporters over the last century lingers: what to do with all the dangerous waste. Now the state is exploring whether to become a solution — by storing nuclear waste in the massive salt deposit in Millard County, a rural part of the state with a long history of meeting the West’s energy needs.
Caverns carved into that salt deposit already hold natural gas liquids, gasoline, and other fuels. Separate storage of hydrogen began there this year to support the massive Intermountain Power Plant’s shift from coal generation to carbon-free energy.
The Trump administration recently announced that it wants states to volunteer as hosts for “nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses” — sites that will take spent radioactive material for a variety of uses, such as storage, recycling, enrichment, fabrication, or powering manufacturing and data centers.
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