The first commercial electricity-generating nuclear power plant in the United States was in operation by 1957 in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. But 66 years later, the United States still doesn’t have a permanent facility to store the highly radioactive spent fuel that this and other nuclear power plants produce, leaving stored waste dotted across the country and costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
In November 2023, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) released most of the land where the Zion Nuclear Power Station in Zion, Illinois, once stood. The power plant operated two pressurized-water nuclear reactors from 1973 to 1997. Zion was shut down in 1998 and underwent a decommissioning process, and now the NRC says most of the land at the former plant site may be used for any application.
