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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Lawmakers have introduced a bill in the Utah House that would effectively stop any nuclear power plant from setting up in the state.
The measure introduced on Wednesday would prevent nuclear power plants from operating in Utah unless there is a federally licensed facility with adequate capacity available to dispose of any high-level radioactive waste.
The proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has a capacity limit that is already too low to handle the material expected to be generated by the country's 104 commercial reactors before they are shut down.
Unless Congress removes the 77,000-ton limit on Yucca Mountain, it would have to approve a search for a second repository to handle future waste.
A companion bill also has been introduced in the Utah Senate.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
