An all-but-abandoned plan to store nuclear waste underground at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain repository could soon be back on the table thanks to a federal appeals court ruling handed down last week. Although proponents of the project welcomed the new forward movement, it’s unclear if it will do much to solve nuclear waste disposal woes in the United States.

The ruling, which is the latest episode in the long and storied history of the facility, orders the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete a licensing review that’s been on hold since 2011. The initial license application, which would allow the U.S. Department of Energy to build a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the site about 80 miles from Las Vegas, stalled after opponents in Congress halted appropriations for the project.

The site, which was chosen over two others being considered, has been hotly contested by Nevadans since it was first identified in the 1980s. In 2002 George W. Bush signed a resolution that allowed the Department of Energy to move forward with construction if the NRC found it feasible. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) has used his clout to impede funding. Until the latest court ruling, Reid’s claims that the project is dead seemed to hold true.

"The narrative had been, Yucca Mountain is dead,” Jack Spencer of the Heritage Foundation told the Wall Street Journal last week. “And the court said, no, Yucca is not dead."

Actually, the federal appeals court declared that licensing of Yucca Mountain isn’t dead. However, even if facility licensing is approved, there’s no guarantee Congress will sanction the funds necessary to complete the project. And meanwhile, Reid and other opponents promise they’ll continue to block Yucca Mountain.

Aside from the not-in-my-backyard political posturing, there are logical reasons not to continue the project, which has already cost the $15 billion. For one, Yucca Mountain will be obsolete before it’s completed. It’s possible that the United States—assuming less than 2-percent growth in nuclear power production per year—would require nine nuclear waste repositories by 2100, according to a statement made by official at Argonne National Laboratory in 2008. Furthermore, many jurisdictions are also concerned about natural disasters and the dangers of transporting the waste, which is currently stored onsite at 80 locations nationwide.

Whatever fate Yucca Mountain meets, the United States still has an ethical obligation to address nuclear waste disposal, according to a 2012 report issued by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. That commission recommended Congress and the Obama Administration immediately create an agency to manage nuclear waste disposal, make money for the Nuclear Waste Fund available to address immediate storage needs, and begin planning to develop additional repositories.

In the meantime, the 30-plus years of Yucca Mountain dithering seems poised to continue. The NRC must now decide if it will dispute the federal court’s 2-1 ruling while Reid and others keep fighting it.

“[The court’s] opinion means nothing,” Reid recently told members of Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, according to the Las Vegas Sun. “Yucca Mountain is dead. It’s padlocked. There’s nothing going on there.”