Yucca Mountain

Because it isn't technically a nuclear site at all, the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository is unlike any other nuclear facility in the world. There is currently very little at the site, and there is no clear plan for anything to be developed there in the future, despite the fact that the project was approved in the year 2002 and was funded all the way through 2011.

The goal of Yucca Mountain's construction was to serve as a repository for high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. The facility was designed to be able to store 77,000 metric tons of trash over a 40-mile tunnel, which was dug five miles below the mountain.

Around $9 billion was spent by the US government on geological surveys and other local research projects. When the Obama Administration started the process of shutting it down in 2009, they immediately stopped all work. The Senate rejected the idea, so the Trump Administration's request for financing to resume licensing operations on the site was unsuccessful. Today, all that remains of the facility is a boarded-up tunnel.