In New Hampshire and across New England, nuclear energy is in the spotlight. But as plans for the region’s nuclear future are charted, some of the big questions that stirred New Hampshire in the 1980s remain unanswered.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte has called for New Hampshire to embrace new nuclear technology, while state legislators have introduced multiple bills to promote its development. Then, last week, Ayotte joined the rest of New England’s governors in a bipartisan joint statement calling for the region to pursue advanced nuclear technologies while championing its two existing nuclear power plants.

There are timeline and economic questions about the implementation of emerging nuclear technologies. But front-end logistics aside, some say there’s a bigger and enduring problem: How will we safely handle nuclear waste, in New Hampshire and nationwide?

The spent fuel that nuclear reactors spit out is hot and remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires it be safeguarded and separate from nearby populations for at least 10,000 years. The law also requires the United States to come up with a national system to facilitate that at a centralized location, but no plan has yet emerged.

The matter is close at hand in New Hampshire, from the hilly west of the state, where a federal proposal for a deep nuclear waste storage site once threatened to displace residents, to the Seacoast, where spent fuel from the Seabrook Station power plant is generated and stored. To activists, just how we will handle the hazardous material is a hanging question that challenges the wisdom of embarking on a new nuclear era.

“There have been efforts over several decades here in New Hampshire to raise attention to this issue, but, obviously, we haven’t seen much real movement,” said Doug Bogen, executive director of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League.

No stranger to nuclear waste

Three hundred or so million years ago, the long, fiery process that turned New Hampshire into the Granite State began. As magma seeped up into the crust from below and began to cool, seams of grainy, crystalline granite slowly formed.

The immense pockets of stone formed through this process are called plutons. When erosion washes away the sediments and soils around them, plutons can form mountains like the 3,155-foot Mount Cardigan. That peak is the crest of New Hampshire’s largest pluton: an approximately 60-mile long and 12-mile wide stretch of granite running through western New Hampshire.

In the 1980s, this swath of stone attracted an unexpected visitor: the United States Department of Energy, searching for a site to excavate a long-term storage facility for the nation’s nuclear waste.

Spent fuel remains radioactive for several million years, but its radioactivity decreases with time. The period of “greatest concern,” where levels of radiation are more dangerous to humans, lasts about 10,000 years, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

So, to keep the waste contained over that period, the U.S. government plans to rely on a combination of engineering and favorable geology, according to Scott Burnell, senior public affairs officer with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A long-term storage site is envisioned underground, because certain minerals can help shield radiation.

Granite is one such mineral. That’s what drew the department to western New Hampshire in the ’80s, Bogen recalled.

In 1986, the department announced that a 78-square-mile area on the pluton, centered around the town of Hillsborough, was one of a dozen sites across the country under consideration for a potential deep storage facility. Residents understood then that a number of surrounding towns would have been partially or entirely seized by the federal government through eminent domain to make way for the facility. Many were distraught.

“There weren’t any Yankees that were going to take that,” said Paul Gunter, a founding member of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance.

The “Clams,” as well as the New Hampshire Radioactive Waste Information Network, which Gunter also co-founded; the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League; and other environmental groups, towns, and individuals mobilized quickly. In addition to organizing demonstrations, activists also circulated a warrant article opposing the generation and dumping of nuclear waste in New Hampshire. One hundred and thirty-seven towns ultimately voted to pass it, according to the New Hampshire Municipal Association.

Their opposition was multi-pronged, Gunter said. Organizers had health and safety concerns about the management of nuclear power and highly radioactive waste, including a lack of faith that the radiation would be safely isolated from human populations. They were also concerned about the proliferation of nuclear technology and the security risks that would come along with the transport of highly enriched nuclear fuel through their region. With some pacifist Quaker roots, the Clamshell Alliance also was, and remains, deeply opposed to nuclear weapons, Gunter said. They consider the matters of nuclear power and nuclear weapons inextricable.

News that New Hampshire was under consideration for a possible dump broke in January 1986. Later that year, the New Hampshire Legislature passed a law opposing the siting of such a dump in the state. When the Department of Energy dropped New Hampshire from its list, the storm seemed to have passed.

But while the Clams and others celebrated that, they continued to oppose the issue around which they had first come together: Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. At the time, then-Gov. John H. Sununu said he believed the two matters had to be considered separately. But Gunter said opposing the generation of nuclear waste went hand-in-hand with opposing its storage.

To this day, he said, the issues are often discussed separately, allowing the threat of nuclear waste to take a backseat in discussions and planning around nuclear energy.

New Hampshire’s high-level radioactive waste act was quietly repealed in 2011, and a subsequent attempt by the late former Rep. Renny Cushing to reintroduce legislation on the topic, opposing the siting of a high-level waste facility in New Hampshire, was defeated in 2020.

Where we are now

Hillsborough’s story has echoes elsewhere across the country. The most progress toward a potential deep storage site occurred at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, where excavation took place, but the site was abandoned amid opposition from the state.

In broad strokes, a similar story has repeated in other instances where a site was proposed, Burnell said. But a spokesperson for the Department of Energy, the agency charged with finding a location, said their search continues nonetheless.

President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a new tack, framing the search for a waste facility along with potential new development as a search for a “nuclear lifecycle innovation campus.” The move comes as Trump has attempted to bolster the U.S. nuclear industry, calling for a surge in nuclear generation and development with multiple executive orders.

“The Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses Initiative is a new effort to modernize the nation’s full nuclear fuel cycle,” a spokesperson for the department’s Office of Nuclear Energy said in an email. That would involve a federal-state partnership with funding for a nuclear technology facility where many stages of the process could be colocated, they said, naming fuel fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing, and “disposition of waste” as some of what would occur at such a site.

The deadline for states to submit “statements of interest” for hosting sites was April 1, and the spokesperson said “dozens” of responses had been filed. But they declined to say whether New Hampshire was among those, and the New Hampshire Department of Energy did not immediately respond to the same question.

In the meantime

Spent fuel generated at Seabrook Station is initially stored in 40-plus-foot-deep pools of water for preliminary cooling, then moved to steel-and-concrete casks, according to Burnell and NextEra spokesperson Lindsay Robertson. The concrete casks remain on-site on a concrete pad, Burnell said. Until another plan is developed, this is the case for spent fuel generated at reactors across the nation.

The storage facilities in use at Seabrook were tested and built to government standards, intended to withstand “extreme weather,” Robertson said. She declined to say how much spent fuel was generated or stored at Seabrook Station.

Since coming online in 1990, Seabrook Station has generated a significant portion of New England’s power without generating much news. Yet Gunter said his concerns about the station and storage of its spent fuel have not been ameliorated with the passage of time.

“They’ve been affirmed,” he said.

Gunter has concerns about concrete degradation and wiring at Seabrook Station and other power plants nationwide. Regarding waste, Gunter and Bogen said they worry about sea level rise affecting the storage area; Seabrook Station is located adjacent to tidal marshland. And, lacking a national plan for more long-term storage of nuclear waste, they wonder what will happen to the material currently stored on a temporary basis at Seabrook if no such plan emerges.

Gunter said his concerns about nuclear waste are part and parcel to his overall opposition to nuclear power, including those generators already in use.

“The new reactors are still on paper. The real threat is really in the day-to-day operation of aging nuclear power plants that are way past their shelf life,” he said.

Nuclear power plants are expensive to construct, creating what Bogen called the “opportunity cost” of embracing them at the expense of other sources of power generation. He and Gunter see renewable energy, principally through offshore wind, as safer and faster to deploy, and were disappointed to see politicians renew their focus on nuclear energy.

“It is coming back in a rebranding, which this industry is very well versed in,” Gunter said. “… Nuclear waste is going to be a persistent hazard over geological spans of time, while the electricity is going to be a fleeting benefit.”

Bogen said he wanted to see more reinforcement of the waste stored at Seabrook in a model called hardened on-site storage. But in terms of dealing with future waste, he and Gunter believe the best solution would be to stop generating it altogether.

“If you find yourself in a hole,” Bogen said, “the first thing you do is stop digging.”

Conversely, the New Hampshire Department of Energy does not see the question of nuclear waste as a barrier to further development in the state, according to an email from department Legislative Liaison Megan Stone. The nuclear roadmap that Ayotte’s March executive order directed the department to craft would include consideration of the “nuclear lifecycle,” including storage and “disposition” of waste, Stone said.

Then, she alluded to the expectation that a federal plan would emerge. “Dry cask storage is a safe and effective method of storing spent nuclear fuel until it is collected by the federal government,” she said.

New Hampshire residents have a lot of pride in where we live.  Especially if you’ve lived here your whole life.  There are certain questions that when people not from around here ask, we tend to roll our eyes.  I’ve come up with a few that really get under my skin.

Not Everyone in New Hampshire Knows How to Garden

People assume that everyone from New Hampshire grow their own food.  That’s just not true.  I shop at Hannaford, sometimes Tendercrop for my produce.  Don’t get me wrong, I admire those who grown their own food, but just because I live in NH, doesn’t mean I can grow a tomato.  I wish.

Not Everyone in NH Loves the Cold

This one really gets me.  I do not know how to ski.  I suppose it’s true that at a few times in my life I have been dragged to the mountain and convinced that I should put on a pair of skis and try my skill at flying down a mountain with these huge sticks on my feet, trying to avoid the trees. All the while being frozen to the bone.  No thank you. I’ll meet you in the lodge and greet you with hot cocoa and love.

READ THIS:  Here are 6 New Hampshire Restaurants That Opened in March 2026

No, we don’t have an In & Out Burger and I’m not sure we want or need one.  We have Five Guys and if you’ve ever tried their french fries, you know that’s all we need. We also don’t have as many Starbucks as you might want if you’re not from around here. We are happy with a Dunks around every corner.

Oh, and I wish I knew Adam Sandler.

Check out this list of annoying questions and let me know if you have any additions to the list.  👇

A bill to bar state colleges and universities from curbing gun rights on their campuses drew a crowd to Concord on Tuesday. Most came to fight the bill, including the president of the University of New Hampshire, students from several state colleges, and multiple members of law enforcement.

“We are stunned we are even here today talking about this,” Durham Deputy Police Chief Jack Dalton said at a small rally before the bill’s state Senate hearing. “Hopefully common sense prevails, so we can move on in Durham.”

Under the bill, anyone legally allowed to carry a weapon could do so on a college campus in the state without limit. The proposal is similar but more sweeping than laws already on the books in about a dozen states. Its backers say the bill, which cleared the New Hampshire House along party lines in February, will make campuses safer while honoring fundamental rights.

“We want senators to understand, they took an oath to defend the Constitution,” said Rep. Sam Farrington, R-Rochester, the bill’s lead sponsor and a current UNH student. “College students are adults and deserving of all their rights.”

The bill would block any college or university that accepts taxpayer funding of any kind from regulating firearms, as well as non-lethal weapons like pepper spray, stun guns or tasers. Right now, UNH students are allowed to keep guns for hunting or target shooting but must store them at the local police department. This bill would allow students to store weapons in their dorm rooms.

According to several people who showed up for the hearing who manage college dormitories, the atmosphere there is already volatile enough.

“A lot of our incidents revolve around alcohol,” said Hans Hendricks, who has been a UNH resident hall director for three years. “We see it every single week, and truly I cannot say it enough: We don’t need guns added to the mix.”

That message was echoed by top college administrators, who stressed that this bill goes farther than similar policies in effect in other states.

This would make New Hampshire unique, said UNH president Elizabeth Chilton: “It would be the most liberal or the most conservative, depending on the way that you look at it.”

According to Farrington, that was by design: “This would be the best campus carry statute in the entire nation,” he told lawmakers.

But the proposal’s breadth appeared to be a sticking point with several senators.

“I am a big gun person, but I do have concerns,” Sen. Bill Gannon, R-Sandown, said, noting that even U.S. military academies bar cadets from keeping guns. “I am scared that institutions that really know weapons have chosen not to have it in their dorms.”

Sen Daryl Abbas, R-Salem, meanwhile, pushed Farrington about whether his bill should include provisions to allow colleges and universities to punish students from carrying weapons while drunk.

“It seems to me pretty much a no-brainer,” Abbas said after Farrington at first seemed to oppose the idea.

“I would support an amendment, so long as it was carefully written, that allows the school to regulate that,” Farrington said.

Winning favor with the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is expected to vote on it later this month, will be this bill’s first test. Republicans hold a 16-8 Senate majority, and this bill has four Senate co-sponsors.

But Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who has prioritized policies she says promote public safety, has yet to take a position on the bill.

Tuesday’s hearing attracted several dozen students to the Statehouse plaza who held signs protesting the proposed bill.

Emily Hunt, a student at the University of New Hampshire, said she felt safe on campus but was worried that making it easier for people to carry guns would change that dynamic.

“I spent all of my education, K through 12, being afraid of a school shooting, both for myself and for my loved ones,” Hunt said. “And I don’t want that at college.”

Eli Orne, a UNH freshman, said he was concerned that more guns on campus could lead to more suicides as it would be easier for students in crisis to get their hands on a deadly weapon.

“Because when you have access to a gun in any capacity — it doesn’t have to be yours, it could just be around — your risk of dying by suicide increases,” he said.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.