Utah’s decades-long fight to stop the nation’s spent nuclear fuel from being stored in Utah--once thought to be definitively won in 2006--just hit a major setback. The story’s in today’s Salt Lake Tribune, but we wanted to give you some more of the back story, and the practical realties of what this setback means, since HEAL Utah was at the forefront of the fight to stop this proposal (called ‘Private Fuel Storage’ or ‘PFS’).

Now, don’t get us wrong, we appreciate and applaud EnergySolutions’ announcement that the company will no longer seek to bring foreign nuclear waste to Utah, and instead will help other countries manage their nuclear waste over there, where it was created. This sounds like a more responsible business plan to us and we hope it works out for them. (Really, we do.)