In the absence of a federal geologic repository or consolidated, interim storage in the United States, commercial spent fuel will remain stranded at some 75 sites across the country. Currently, these include 18 “orphaned sites” where spent fuel has been left at decommissioned reactor sites.

With the termination of the Yucca Mountain project, which was proposed to be our nation’s first repository for the disposal of military and civilian spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, the future of nuclear waste management and disposal in this country became increasingly uncertain. Interim storage has been advocated by many as a temporary solution while a permanent solution is studied for potentially several more decades to come.

Conventional ways of communicating about the transition to renewable energy in North America presuppose that energy systems can be changed while sustaining existing social, political, and economic relations. Energy democracy counters such ostensibly apolitical narratives by emphasizing the socially transformative potential of this transition. Yet energy democracy, as both organizing principle and social movement, is itself increasingly recognized as flexible and contested.