The Environmental Working Group said Virginia will be second in the nation only to South Carolina in tonnage of nuclear waste left over. That's because both of Virginia's Dominion Resources-owned nuclear sites, Surry Power Station in Isle of Wight and North Anna outside Richmond, already have gotten licenses to run an extra 20 years.

Congress approved in 2002 a permanent spot to bury nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, Nev. But all the space at Yucca was spoken for prior to the approval of license extensions at the Virginia nuclear sites and 13 others nationwide that will create another 20 years of waste.

"You hear it wouldn't be a big deal to expand Yucca, but those discussions haven't been had yet," said Jon Corsiglia a spokesman for the environmental group.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved license extensions for 26 nuclear reactors at 15 sites since March 2000 and denied none. Surry and North Anna each have two reactors. Companies that own 18 reactors at nine sites also have applied for renewal.

The environmental group estimates the re-licensed plants will produce almost 19 tons of new waste each year.

The group said there will be at least 21,000 more tons of waste from the plants with accepted and pending license renewals.

The federal government has projected that Yucca will open in about 2010 and will take deliveries of waste through 2048. The allocated space in Yucca is only enough to dispose of the amount of waste that will exist when the repository opens in 2011.

There wasn't even enough room for the waste from reactors if they just operated through the end of their current licenses.

"We're already at a point where Yucca Mountain will be filled to capacity by the time the waste is delivered there," said Corsiglia. "The wave of re-licensing seems to be making that problem worse."

Steve Kerekes at the Nuclear Energy Institute said the Department of Energy originally estimated Yucca is large enough to accommodate about 132,000 tons. Kerekes said Congress can't get an energy bill passed in the middle of a "full-blown energy crisis," so it's not surprising or easy to understand why only 70,000 metric tons of space was approved.

"This is not at the top of Congress's priority list," said Kerekes.

The environmental group says the approval of Yucca encouraged more companies to get license renewals for their reactors because the waste currently on site can be disposed of. But as more licenses get renewed, the extra waste nationwide that won't fit at Yucca will grow.

Dusty Horwitt, an analyst at the environmental group, sees the growing waste problem as a reason to abandon nuclear power in favor of other alternatives. The group wants Congress to move away from nuclear power by the time the current licenses run out.

"There's not an ideal way to dispose of high-level nuclear waste," said Horwitt, "but we ought to stop making more of it. That's just making the problem worse."

Dominion disagrees with that idea, said Dominion spokesman Rick Zuercher. There is a place for nuclear power alongside renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Dominion also has plenty of plants that burn fossil fuels, which pollute the air and have become very expensive of late.

"The crux of this is where will we go in the country in terms of meeting this country's energy needs," said Zuercher.

But as long as nuclear power remains in the mix, there are still some serious waste decisions to be made.

Government projections of the amount of waste going to Yucca and time frame for delivery was based on an assumption that reactors will only get 10-year extensions. So far, 24 reactors got 20-year extensions and two others got 18- and 19-year licenses.

Surry currently has almost 1,060 tons of nuclear waste stored on- site in an underground pool and steel cylinder casks that are about 16 feet high and 8 feet in diameter. Radioactive fuel assemblies rods filled with uranium pellets go into the pool to cool for at least five years.

About 32 fuel assemblies are loaded underwater into each cask and a lid is put on top of the container. After the cask is removed from the pool, it is filled with helium gas, bolted down and placed on a concrete pad.

"It has a monitoring device and if there is any leak of helium, we can detect it and make any repairs necessary," said Zuercher.

Virginia may drop in the rankings of states with leftover waste in the future. Companies have either gotten, asked or intend to ask for a license extension for at least 73 nuclear reactors out of 103 reactors nationwide.