A glance at how Canada and the U.S. are trying to deal with high-level nuclear waste.

Spent reactor fuel: The proposed Deep Geologic Repository at Kincardine will house low and intermediate waste exclusively, including decommissioned reactors when they reach end of life. The disposal of spent reactor fuel — so-called high-level waste — is on another order of magnitude. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is under federal mandate to find a deep rock host for the spent fuel.

Wet bays: Spent fuel bundles are initially cooled in wet bays for as many as 10 years. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission reports that as of December 2013, the Darlington, Bruce and Pickering stations had 1.43 million bundles in wet storage. A further 750,000 bundles are housed in follow-up dry storage. All in, those bundles represent roughly 42 million kilograms of uranium.

Potential Ontario host communities: The list of host communities for the spent fuel was shortened in February when Creighton, Sask., and Schreiber, Ont., were deemed unsuitable. The nine remaining possible sites are all in Ontario, six in the north and three near the Bruce nuclear site. The NWMO says a decision is years away.

The U.S. stalemate: We’re hardly alone. In 1987, U.S. Congress approved a plan to centralize and dispose of spent nuclear fuel in a deep geological repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. President Barack Obama killed that idea in 2008. The Democrats want a new site; Republicans want to push ahead in Nevada. The process can reasonably be described as stalled.