May 24, Robert Alvarez. Spent fuel rods give off about 1 million rems 10,00Sv of radiation per hour at a distance of one foot — enough radiation to kill people in a matter of seconds. There are more than 30 million such rods in U. No other nation has generated this much radioactivity from either nuclear power or nuclear weapons production. Nearly 40 percent of the radioactivity in U. The Vermont Yankee reactor also holds about seven percent more radioactivity than the combined total in the pools at the four troubled reactors at the Fukushima site.
Even though they contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet, U. Some are made from materials commonly used to house big-box stores and car dealerships. The United States has 31 boiling water reactors BWR with pools elevated several stories above ground, similar to those at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station.
As in Japan, all spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants do not have steel-lined, concrete barriers that cover reactor vessels to prevent the escape of radioactivity. The outlook might be different if Congress were to lift the ban on nuclear-fuel recycling, which would cut the amount of waste requiring disposal by more than half.
Instead of requiring a political consensus on multiple repository sites to store nuclear plant waste, one facility would be sufficient, reducing disposal costs by billions of dollars. That facility will produce mixed-oxide fuel for generating electric power, not from power-plant waste, but from surplus plutonium now in U.
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. Aug 30, , pm EDT. Jul 30, , am EDT. Nuclear utilities in the United States— 60 plants in 30 states , as of December —mostly store their spent fuel rods on site, distributing the risk of contamination and leakage around the nation. In the federal government proposed Yucca Mountain, about miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a permanent centralized repository for such nuclear waste. Now, another potential storage site has emerged to store spent fuel rods from U.
A waste facility just across the Texas state line stores materials that have become radioactive by proximity to nuclear materials; the site is looking to expand into higher-level forms of radioactive waste as well.
But, as with Yucca Mountain, local opposition to the facility is mounting. State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard accused Holtec of misleading the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission about agreements it had struck with nearby oil and gas operators to ensure that the drilling operations would not disturb the site.
Holtec has not responded to requests for comment. Stephen Aldridge, mayor of the town of Jal some 50 miles south of the site, is concerned about transporting spent nuclear rods to the new facility. Thousands of workers, some with families, have moved to Jal for the booming oil and gas fields nearby, and Aldridge hopes that some will stay. He worries that the threat of accidents at the new facility will instead push people away.
Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste program at the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, also worries about moving the waste across long distances. He said he believed that the risks from distributing the waste widely are one of the reasons that a facility ought to be built. John Heaton, vice chairman of ELEA, cited extensive stress-testing of the cannisters that will house the waste, suggesting that opposition to Holtec comes from emotional, as opposed to technical, thinking.
Some New Mexicans fear that a centralized site in their area could be a lasting commitment. Morgan and the NISG advocate against nuclear materials statewide and for a wind-down of nuclear power more generally. Commercial used fuel rods are safely and securely stored at 76 reactor or storage sites in 34 states.
The fuel is either enclosed in steel-lined concrete pools of water or in steel and concrete containers, known as dry storage casks. For the foreseeable future, the fuel can safely stay at these facilities until a permanent disposal solution is determined by the federal government. Over the last 55 years, more than 2, cask shipments of used fuel have been transported across the United States without any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public.
The fuel is shipped in transportation casks that are designed to withstand more than 99 percent of vehicle accidents, including water immersion, impact, punctures and fires.
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