According to the Department of Energy, there is enough spent nuclear waste in the United States to fill a football-field-sized hole 15 feet deep. From a plethora of proposals, scientists and politicians have selected on-site storage as the safest solution for the buildup. But it's a temporary solution. The waste will be fatal to humans and other animals for tens of thousands of years — yet the storage tombs are expected to last only a hundred years.

These scattered nuclear graveyards are emblematic of a failed U.S. nuclear energy policy — a policy that is rarely discussed even as regulators entertain proposals to build roughly 30 new nuclear power plants.

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