Dry Casks Are Alternative for Indian Point, N.J., Nuclear Waste Storage.

Byline: Bob Ivry

Jul. 8--For all the fuss over Yucca Mountain, it won't solve the nation's nuclear waste problem.

Thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel will still need to be stored at reactor sites around the country, such as Indian Point, for many, many years.

Even if Yucca Mountain opens in 2010, as is now optimistically proposed, it won't be able to hold all the waste that continues to mount at the rate of 2,000 tons a year. Today, 49,500 tons of radioactive waste are stored at 103 reactor sites, most of it in pools of water designed to cool it. In 50 years, after 77,000 tons have been hauled to Yucca, 72,500 tons will remain at sites across the country.

There is general agreement on a solution: Waste is safer if it's stored in concrete-and-steel tombs called dry casks rather than pools of water, which some …