Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your ... Radioactive?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering whether to allow a Utah dump to accept 20,000 tons of radioactive nuclear waste from Italy, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

The fallout from this decision may have an extraordinarily long half-life.

Critics say the move would make the U.S. the world's nuclear landfill.

The U.S. is already hamstrung in its attempt to find a suitable way to store nuclear waste, as the Yucca Mountain site next door in Nevada shows. Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants remains dangerous for thousands of years. Now, it's stored at each of the 100-plus active reactors around the country, and plans to store it centrally, deep in Yucca Mountain, are endlessly controversial.

This would be the largest import of any of the 24 proposed or 13 granted, according to the Monitor.

EnergySolutions, the company that wants to import Italy's radioactive waste, had soothing words about it. Since most of the waste would be recycled or burned up in Tennessee, only 8% would end up in Utah.

What a relief.

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