The Energy Department finished the latest in environmental evaluations on Yucca in October. It is conducting several public comment periods around the state and will take public comments on the latest findings until Jan. 8.

Meanwhile, the department has also started the license application process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It began its latest attempt at getting the collection of millions of documents together — as required by law — for the license support network and plans to submit a license application to the department by June 30, 2008. This is the first step in the licensing process that would take at least until 2011, if all went according to the schedule laid out under law, but a change in administration, legal challenges by Nevada or other entities, action by Congress, the budget and other factors all could affect the timeline.

However, the uncertainty about the long-term solution for nuclear waste disposal should not prevent new plants from being built, according to the industry.

"We are not tying Yucca Mountain to new plants," said Steve Kraft, senior director of used fuel management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the policy organization for the nuclear technologies industry, who has followed the program since its inception.

Last month, The Tennessee Valley Authority and NuStart Energy consortium, made up of 12 different companies, filed an application with NRC for two new reactors at the Bellefonte nuclear power plant in northern Alabama. In September, NRG Energy Inc. also filed an application with NRC for two new reactors at the South Texas Project nuclear power plant site along the Gulf Coast. These are the first applications for new reactors in 30 years.

License applications for new reactors need to have plans for what to do with used nuclear fuel on-site but do not need to have long- term plans because the federal government is supposed to be taking it.

In Utah, Rep. Aaron Tilton, R- Springville, is CEO of Transition Power Development LLC, and wants to build at least two nuclear reactors in Utah. He has said that if the plants were to be approved and built, there would not be any used nuclear fuel to reprocess for 30 or 40 years and the plants would be able to store spent fuel rods for 100 years.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has said he could not support a nuclear power plant in Utah until there is a way to safely reprocess the plant's radioactive waste on-site.

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com