Energy company abandons proposal to store nuclear waste at site in New Mexico

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News/AP

October 9, 2025, 5:52 PM


SANTA FE, N.M. -- SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A private energy company is abandoning a proposal to store nuclear waste at a site in southeastern New Mexico.

Holtec International described an “untenable path forward for used fuel storage in New Mexico” as it walked away from the proposal to temporarily hold spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants across the nation. The New Jersey-based company confirmed its decision Thursday. Holtec said the move would allow it to work with other states that are more amenable.

The New Mexico project was cast aside despite a favorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling in August that rebooted plans for a temporary storage in Texas and New Mexico.

The U.S. is at an impasse over a permanent solution for storing spend nuclear fuel, as roughly 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, pile up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground. U.S. nuclear regulators in 2023 licensed the proposed multibillion-dollar storage complex in New Mexico, while opposition persisted.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/energy-company-abandons-proposal-store-nuclear-waste-site-126381444

[duhneece]

1. This issue is the last time we had Dems and Reps work together to stop Holtec

Our south-central county stopped Holtec by having folks from both parties show up at our County Commission’s and protest Holtec burying nuclear waste in Otero County New Mexico.
That’s the last time we saw both parties work together.

[moniss]

2. This sounds like a company who goes around

raking in money for "proposals" and "development" while knowing it's never going to happen.

[Clouds Passing]

3. They are experiencing earthquakes in the SE section of New Mexico because of fracking.

https://www.koat.com/article/earthquake-new-mexico-texas-possible-causes/64726609

[womanofthehills]

4. NM now producing 2 million barrels a day of oil

15% of US consumption. Majority of well are fracked. Lots of ozone plus other chemicals but lots of money for state budget and free college. Trade offs.

[Clouds Passing]

6. Plus free child care.

[hunter]

5. Existing nuclear power plants extract only a small fraction of the potential energy in this fuel

Reprocessed used nuclear fuel from these inefficient reactors, "depleted" uranium left over from nuclear weapon production and fuel enrichment, the plutonium cores of existing nuclear weapons, and various abandoned mine tailings could replace fossil fuels and power the U.S.A. for centuries.

Recycling fuels would also reduce the long term radioactivity of them.

The only reason we're not doing this is that newly mined uranium is cheap, along with the misguided (in my opinion) public opposition to nuclear power.

If gasoline was a penny a gallon would you care if your car got two miles per gallon instead of twenty miles per gallon? Especially if the twenty mile per gallon car cost two or three times more than the two mile per gallon cars? That's the current situation with uranium and nuclear power.

That's the problem with most of our world economy. It's easier and more profitable to trash the world extracting resources, making stuff we use only briefly, and throwing it all out as trash when we're done with it. This does not bode well for our long term survival.

If we observe the world around us, nature recycles just about everything. That's how life has persisted on this planet for billions of years.