Having failed to meet a January 1998 deadline for beginning to accept spent nuclear fuel, the Department of Energy (DOE) is now besieged by lawsuits for breach of contract. By 2010, the government had paid about $760 million in settlements, and DOE estimates $13 billion in potential liability costs if the government does not start accepting nuclear waste by 2020.

With a geologic repository nowhere in sight, and the government in a legal and financial bind, the idea of a centralized interim site is often talked up. This site would serve as a way station between the nuclear power plants and final transfer to a geologic repository. On paper, this looks like a win–win. The federal government could take charge of the waste and stop hemorrhaging from lawsuits. The utilities would get the waste off their lots. People who live near nuclear power plants would get the waste out of their neighborhood. Proponents of nuclear energy could claim progress with at least some aspect of nuclear waste disposal. But is interim surface storage anymore possible, or palatable, than geologic underground disposal? And how interim is interim?