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NEVADA’S Yucca mountain, the chosen site for a massive nuclear waste repository, may be a bit safer than previously thought.

In 2005, the US Department of Energy (DoE) estimated the odds of a volcanic eruption at Yucca mountain in the next 10,000 years at about 1.6 in 10,000, making it a small but legitimate concern. Surveys of the area are incomplete, however, prompting a warning from researchers later that year that the DoE may be underestimating the risk by a factor of 10 to 100.

Now Tom Parsons of the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, says…

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