We’re in Stage 1 right now: “Planning and Capacity Building.” This involves earning the trust of local communities, encouraging “mutual learning” and understanding of nuclear waste management. That’s expected to take another 2-3 years, and the DOE won’t entertain volunteer hosts just yet.
Of course we’ve all learned that such timelines can be purely aspirational — DOE was supposed to start accepting the nation’s commercial nuclear waste fordisposal in, um, 1998 — but again, after decades of paralysis, this is at least some progress. Each is getting about $2 million to “help DOE learn from and involve communities across the country in the consent-based siting process, answer questions and concerns, and develop an understanding so that we are good neighbors even before moving in.”
Sea to shining sea: The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s map of sites storing spent nuclear waste.