One option is consolidated interim storage.
Some supporters of nuclear power would like the federal government to establish an above-ground "interim" storage site.
"Interim storage is, in my mind, a waste of time, money, and resources," Gregory Jaczko, a physicist and former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told us.
But we are satisfied that interim storage will hold waste from existing and any new power stations, safely and securely for as long as is necessary.
The United States, which also lacks a permanent waste-disposal site, keeps its own nuclear waste at interim storage facilities like the one contemplated in Petropavlovsk.
"SMA will be able to reduce transportation and interim storage costs as well as currency exchange risks," Günther Cramer, the company's chief, said in a statement.
But it said that the country should immediately start seeking a site for the interim storage of nuclear waste as well as one for its long-term burial.
After cooling on site for a year, spent fuel from Sweden's three coastal nuclear sites is transported in purpose-built casks, on a specially designed ship, to a central interim storage facility.
Under the proposal outlined today, the American money would help build an interim storage site for reactor parts and fuel, while the Russians would pay for dismantling the remainder of the subs.
And the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which instructed the Energy Department to pursue a repository, has historically been interpreted to forbid establishment of an interim storage place until a final site is established.
Before that development, the Energy Department counted nine such sites, with about 2,800 tons of fuel in 248 casks and was hoping to establish a pilot-scale interim storage plant for that fuel.
