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Safeguarding Spent Fuel Pools in the United States
A drained spent fuel pool in the U.S. could lead to a catastrophic fire that would result in long-term land contamination substantially worse than what the Chernobyl accident unleashed.
As this photograph shows, the spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex are exposed to the open sky and might be draining. The radioactive dose rates coming off the pools appear to be life-threatening. Lead-shielded helicopters trying to dump water over the pools/reactors could not get close enough to make much difference because of the dangerous levels of radiation.
Crippled Daiichi ComplexcIf the spent fuel is exposed, the zirconium cladding encasing the spent fuel can catch fire — releasing potentially catastrophic amounts of radiation, particularly cesium-137. Here's an article I wrote in January 2002 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about spent fuel pool dangers.
In October 2002, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire — serving at that time as her state's attorney general—organized a group letter to Congress signed by her and 26 of her counterparts across the nation. In it, they requested greater safeguards for reactor spent-fuel pools. The letter urged "enhanced protections for one of the most vulnerable components of a nuclear power plant — its spent fuel pools." It was met with silence.
In January 2003, my colleagues and I warned that a drained spent fuel pool in the U.S. could lead to a catastrophic fire that would result in long-term land contamination substantially worse than what the Chernobyl accident unleashed. An area around the Chernobyl site roughly half the size of New Jersey continues to be considered uninhabitable.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear energy industry strongly disagreed. Congress then asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to referee this dispute.
In 2004, after the NRC tried unsuccessfully to suppress its report, the NAS panel agreed with our findings. The Academy panel stated that a “partially or completely drained pool could lead to a propagating zirconium cladding fire and release large quantities of radioactive materials to the environment."
U.S. reactors are each holding at least four times as much spent fuel as the individual pools at the wrecked Daiichi nuclear complex in Fukushima. According to the Energy Department, about 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel has been generated as of this year, containing approximately 12.4 billion curies. These pools contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet. Merely 14 percent of U.S. spent fuel is in dry storage.
At this stage it's critical that:
- The NRC hold off on renewing operating licenses for nuclear reactors, given our newfound certainty that many sites in earthquake zones could experience greater destruction than previously assumed.
- The NRC promptly require reactor owners to end the dense compaction of spent fuel, and ensure that at least 75 percent of the spent fuel in pools operating above their capacity be removed and placed into dry, hardened storage containers on site, which are more likely to withstand earthquakes.
In our 2003 study, we estimated that it would take about 10 years to do this with existing technology, at an expense of $3.5 to $7 billion.
- Posted in
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32 Comments so far
Show AllBut the pro-nuke trolls who frequent the CD's comment section stridently assure us that the zirconium cladding cannot catch fire. Don't worry, be happy. Another nuke jacka$$ actually asserted that there couldn't possibly be a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in CA. They're all geniuses, n'est-ce pas?
No, we could have an 8.9 and with two faults beneath Diablo it doesn't take alot of imagination.
The critical factor is spent rod diameter. Properly sized, the spent rods can be stored inside members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who will drink lots and lots of water. Then the rest of us would be safe.
Getting this close to the moon increases clarity of thinking.
[ "Swords and Ploughshares" - ABC ]
Trylon
Trylon,
Quite right.
As to the behavior of our alledgedly responsible officials in government in charge of keeping nuclear energy and waste safe, I have only this to say:
Abyssus abyssum invocat
And whatever the NRC can't handle, we'll feed to Homer, Mr. Burns and all the other Simpsons.
Clarity. Yeah.
Require that the storage of the nuclear rods be placed in the towns wherein our representatives live. See how that goes?
Yes, but think it through. How do we safely transport the spent nuclear rods to DC?
Better yet - place the spent fuel in towns where the CEOs, upper management, and members of the Boards of Directors live.
If they are transported to destinations anywhere near people, you can rest assured they will be dirt poor.
But past ignorance has quixotically placed much of latter day JP Morgan's lair well within reach of any INd Pt disaster. That will now have to be dealt with.
Oh where oh where has my lost nuke wsate gone?
Oh where oh where can it be?
what is "dry storage"
http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/dry-cask-storage.html
http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/locations.html
Alvarez's article from January 2002 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, linked to above in the article, is a worth while read.
From Alvarez's article of January 2002:
"If a fire were to break out at the Millstone Reactor Unit 3 spent fuel pond in Connecticut, it would result in a three-fold increase in background exposures. This level triggers the NRC's evacuation requirement, and could render about 29,000 square miles of land uninhabitable, according to Thompson. Connecticut covers only about 5,000 square miles; an accident at Millstone could severely affect Long Island and even New York City."
. . . .
"Today the pressure felt by reactor owners from electricity deregulation works against nuclear safety. According to a report on utility deregulation and nuclear power by the Nukem Corporation, "In an era of deregulation there will be no pool of captive customers to shoulder uneconomic operating costs or massive capital additions." Because of deregulation, the owners of many reactors are limited liability companies with little or no cash reserves. There is no financial incentive to move wastes to safer dry storage."
"Report details 14 “near-misses” at US nuclear power plants in 2010"
By Kate Randall
21 March 2011
"A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists documents in chilling detail 14 instances of “near-misses” at US nuclear power plants in 2010. Published in the midst of the Japanese nuclear emergency following the earthquake and tsunami, the report exposes the danger posed to the population and the planet by the for-profit US energy companies overseen in an often slipshod manner by US government regulators."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/ucsr-m21.shtml
Let us not forget the experimental nuclear plant built by PG&E and then shut down up in Eureka, CA. The spent fuel rods are still there...
The only reason they won't clean it up is because it would show the World how complicated and expensive it is to clean up just one "clean" nuclear plant.
Wow, I didn't know about that one,
And let's not forget the near melt down at Rancho Saco, CA. A steam generator dryout occured A FULL YEAR before Three Mile Island of the exact same design. Sacramento residents had been finding radiation in the creeks for a long time before this FUBAR occured. I was downwind of the sucker and we got it shut down via protest and voter referendum. But it almost nuked us in 1978.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Seco_Nuclear_Generating_Station
But the Nuclear Mafia is going to shove 200 nuke reactors down our throats anyway since Obama-the-waterboy will do anything they tell him to.
YesssaaaSir,
YesssaaaSir,
YesssaaaSir! (Barry shuffles feet and nodds head up and down while smiling).
We've got to get vocal and become worthy citizens "who preserve the spirit of resistance" as Thomas Jefferson the founder of the USA so eloquently put it.
Nuclear power is unsafe under any conditions and we must abolish it worldwide.
See this for a frightening list of under-reported nuke power disasters:
http://planetofthebushapes.wikidot.com/nuclear-power-incidents
TJ
Sorry, Robert, I'm not hearing you.
Did you forget to identify the cause of this economic offense?
Robert, You're making my head spin with too much data on nuclear energy dangers, solid waste dangers, automobile dangers, carbon dangers, dangers of wars, corporate looting complexities, torture secrecy, spying, anti-union attacks, etc., etc., etc., --- Ad nauseum.
Why not focus on the source of all these awful things --- The seminal causal cancer of the hidden EMPIRE at the heart of all these 'symptom issue' distractions!
Will protests have any effect on EMPIRE? if you don't say that EMPIRE is the cause of the problem? Of all problems?
If complaining about nuclear reactor explosions and protesting about unfairness by the supposed intellectuals behind the protest movements do not soon realize that they need to clearly identify the focus of their protest singularly at the "EMPIRE", which is the cancerous cause of everything from the divided 'symptom issue' protests against wars, economic oppression, spying ... and all the way down to saving the friggin whales, then they will soon enough find that Empire does not respond to anything that does not have the guts or brains to name its target as EMPIRE.
You can't attack Empire if you don't have the basic sense to identify it as 'Empire'.
Just some advice from an old strategic marketing guy who knows that you can't sell cars if you haven't educated (and told) people what a 'car' is.
And you can't sell a revolution "Against Empire" (Parenti) if the multitude don't know what an Empire they live in!
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Liberty over violent empire -- People's Party 2012
This may be a stupid question but why don't we just take all those spent nuclear fuel rods, reduce them to powder (or whatever), ship it back to the mines it came from, mix it with all of the mine tailings and put it back in the ground? There could be no protests about not in my backyard. I imagine the problem with this is it would be too expensive and so would increase costs and reduce profits. If this is so then aren't we just looking for is a cheap way to dispose of nuclear waste? I guess leaving it in a pool and ignoring it makes nuclear seem a lot more competitive
Grinding them up? It's hard enough keeping them cool & under water, protecting them from being exposed to air.
When they burn they decay, releasing radioactive elements (gas). It's nothing like the original uranium mined from the earth.
Then there is the remediation of mining uranium for the fuel process that has been ignored for 50 years because it is on Indian reservations:
http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/abandoned-uranium-mines/
The casks that they store used rods in DETERIORATE!
Radiation will turn concrete to a sponge like material, and then it too is radioactive waste.
What happens when a cask is breached, is the same as in Japan now. You have to go in and fix it or it releases radiation into the atmosphere.
Since nuclear waste is so toxic that it makes it attractive to people who don't like us,we have to keep info about the waste out of the public's eye. Thus we have to keep all info secret. So out of sight, out of mind. The result is that the keepers of the waste can cover up mistakes and the public forgets that the toxic waste exists. For a democracy to work, the public has to be informed. So we have a trade off. Use nuclear energy and have a lot of secretes so that we can be safe. On the other hand, we can give up nuclear energy and reduce the secrets, giving democracy a better chance to operate. Which do we want? Our national character seems to be (eat our cake and have it too). By that I mean lots of programs provided by the government, but without any taxes. We want all the energy we can consume, without any risk from nuclear waste and pretend that we are living in a democracy, that doesn't have the government looking over our shoulder.
THX 1138 is a great sci fi movie that shows what happens to a society that tries to have it's cake and eat it too.
Nuclear friendly red states are likely to be the first to suffer a nuclear accident that makes their states uninhabitable. Blue states should pass laws against conservative immigration.
They could stuff all the old radioactive junk under a mountain in Navada until it reaches a critical mass.
Of course we could look at these spent fuel rods languishing away in their swimming pools as safe, maybe. Only thing is is that Washington state is pretty seismically active and not to mention, oh a dozen or more volcanos. If there were an event from either and agitated those languishing rods, the rods could spew out a whole lot of radioactive particles which is not a good thing.
Remember Alexander Litvinenk? The defected russian to britain? Well he did not fair well at all when someone dumped a spoon full of polonium-210. His end did not take long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
Now we may be facing the closure of wide swaths of land because of the flippant way the greedy people don't care about detrimental after affects. Once they have their money, they are not responsible.
Few understand a critical element about these spent fuel pools, especially ones built 35-40 years ago. These were originally licensed and designed to hold only 4/3rds of a core, with the idea that the waste would be shipped off to an imaginary repository which was the government's responsibility to build and operate (Hey Tea Partiers - now that's one hefty Government Bailout! ). Each annual refueling involved 1/3rd of a core. A full core's capacity remained should they have to repair something inside the reactor vessel itself.
Seeing no repository on the horizon the NRC allowed the increased capacity of these pools to 22/3rds and then 44/3rds of a core simply by modifying the racks, allowing a 40 year lifetime of operation. Yet little was done to increase the cooling systems in these pools. Now they are asking for 20 more years which means 20/3rd more core's worth of spent fuel - or 64/3rds of a core - in these pools which were originally designed for 4/3rds of a core only.
These spent fuel pools are little more than a thick walled swimming pool, with no containment structure around them like what you have for a reactor. They are sitting ducks for terrorist attacks or as demonstrated in Japan, vulnerable to natural disasters. Their coolant circulation systems are woefully underpowered and their containment is nonexistent, should a problem occur.
Allowing the expansion of these by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission went ahead despite much protest and outcry, with only the one sided argument by the utilities listened to in hearings by the commissioners. This reeks of a vast conspiracy.
Thank you Cbwim for this bit of history.
It makes me realize how the nuclear debate could possibly be progressing if there was some major media with enough liberal bias left that could and would be fair and balanced enough to fairly place the issue with its concerns and background into the public view so that we would have an informed populace able to sensibly discuss the issues concerning the use of nuclear power.
sneaker-net?
Since Wall Street is so enamored of the term "creative destruction", which is itself a logical fallacy worhy of respect only from scam artists and morally bankrupt individuals of all stripes, I suggest the one and only possible way that creative destruction can be used for the good of society. Let's make the New York Stock Exchange the new repository for nuclear waste fuel rods.
Don't the Wall Street boys and girls claim that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette?
The New York Stock Exchange brokers and wheeler dealers should proudly become those "broken eggs". I'm sure all those patriotic brokers will jump at the chance to aid the USA by
1) Having a really great place to store nuclear waste in order to safeguard the glorious nuclear industry.
2) Reduce the national crime rate by about 70%.
3) Increase job opportunities in brokerage firms with new slots constantly opening up.
4) Provide a bull market in PR firms tasked with convincing brokers to work in the NYSE.
5) Make money by shorting life inurance corporations in New York.
6) Promote depopulation of undesirables (Wall Street types always claim the Nazi style government was very efficent, right?).
Now that's what I call REALLY CREATIVE destruction.
As I age, I come to realize that any "necessity" of mankind that is provided by those whose first interest is profit is doomed to create exploitation of the users by the providers, and that that exploitation increases exponentially as the profits accrue to the providers. We are in such a cycle. I am not sure just where on the final curve. Human greed is an ugly thing to watch. dh
Decades ago when I was a reactor operator aboard a submarine, all we "nucs" ever heard was "reactor safety" morning, noon, and night. Our main job was described as "keeping the reactor safe". Our lives aboard ship revolved around making sure our reactor controls division paperwork was up-to-date and flawless. We drilled and trained and drilled some more so that regardless of what happened, the reactor was safe. The culture (cult?) of reactor safety was pervasive up and down the chain of command. It was the one thing no one joked about.
I am no longer pro-nuclear power for civilian uses. When profits are at stake, corporations will ALWAYS choose them over reactor safety. Corporations are, after all, sociopaths. Admiral Rickover (father of the nuclear navy) was a mean and demanding son of a bitch, but he was not a sociopath. He genuinely cared about the health and safety of the sailors aboard nuclear powered ships. He also cared about the health and safety of the world as a whole. Try to find someone like that in the business world...(You won't.)
Great Point!
If safety was a concern, there would be very little chance of an accident, whether it's an oil well or a nuke plant.
But in a competitive and profit driven society, this is what we get. They tell us it's safe; when it's not. They spend tons of money trying to convince us of that, while cutting corners on safety.