CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

After a quarter-century of scientific dispute and legal wrangling, the Energy Department officially launched what could be one of the most complex and costly engineering efforts in history. The Yucca Mountain repository, located 16 miles from the California border, would eventually store 70,000 metric tons of waste that has been accumulating since the first reactors went online.

And the amount of waste will grow at an increasing rate in future decades: In the last year, utilities have launched a nuclear power renaissance, announcing plans for 15 new commercial reactors.

The application "will further encourage the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, which is absolutely critical to our energy security, to our environment and to our national security," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday.

The license application, which is 8,600 pages long, was filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has up to four years to act. If everything goes unfettered, Bodman said, Yucca Mountain could be open for business by 2020 at a cost of about $70 billion.

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