As officials battled over Yucca Mountain, temporary storage sites and deep borehole technology, some 190 million pounds of highly radioactive waste piled up at commercial nuclear reactors all over the nation.

Workers remove a turbine rotor from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in December. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

That includes 3.6 million pounds “stranded” on a scenic bluff along California’s quake-prone coast at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

In November, the federal government announced a new push to find homes for America’s nuclear waste. Kim Petry, acting deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition for the U.S. Department of Energy, will provide an update on the effort at the quarterly San Onofre Community Engagement Panel meeting at noon Thursday, Feb. 10.

The idea is to create centralized, community-embraced, but temporary storage sites for millions of pounds of spent fuel while the prickly issue of permanent storage is parsed.

“Management of the fuel is the responsibility of the DOE,” said Kathryn Huff, principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy with the DOE, in November. “We cannot continue to defer this challenge for future generations to figure out.”

The meeting will stream live on the CEP site at https://bit.ly/3LgVqcD. Audio-only can be reached at 213-297-0156, with conference ID number 405 824 62#. Comments and questions can be submitted in advance to [email protected]. To comment or ask a question during the meeting, fill out the form at https://bit.ly/3uuzNj4.