Why didn’t someone think of this before?

The Yucca Mountain tunnel repository was designated as the sole repository option by the U.S. government in 1987 and was supposed to begin accepting our nation’s waste inventories in 1998. When Yucca Mountain stalled, no alternatives could be considered because the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) specified that Yucca Mountain was by law the only option. Our solution would provide an additional disposition pathway for commercial spent nuclear fuel if the NWPA can be amended to allow DOE to apply for a license using the Deep Isolation method.