| May 21, 2008 |  |
NRC Commissioner's Proposal to Store High-Level Radioactive Waste More Safely Supported by Science Advocacy Group
Group Supports Recommendation that Plants Move Spent Fuel from Pools to Dry Cask Storage
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2008/s-08-023.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~globsec/publications/pdf/12_beyea.pdf
WASHINGTON (May 21, 2008)—A Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) member's recent call for the agency to require nuclear power plants to better protect high-level radioactive waste on site was seconded by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which has advocated for safer storage of spent nuclear fuel rods for years. In a May 13 speech at a nuclear industry trade group forum, NRC Commissioner Gregory B. Jaczko said it is much safer to store spent nuclear fuel rods in steel and concrete containers, called dry casks, than in large water-filled concrete pits, known as wet pools. He recommended that his agency require plants to expeditiously transfer spent fuel from wet pools to dry casks rather than allow it to accumulate in the pools.
According to UCS, if the NRC required nuclear plant owners to move spent fuel to dry casks, plant owners would reduce the likelihood of a spent fuel fire due to accident or terrorist attack and the amount of radioactive material that could be released by such a fire.
"This is exactly what the NRC needs to do," said Dave Lochbaum, director of UCS's Nuclear Power Safety Project. "It's an easy way to make plants less vulnerable to attack. If the NRC does what Commissioner Jaczko suggests, the millions of Americans who live near nuclear power plants will be safer."
U.S. nuclear power reactors require refueling every 18 to 24 months. During refueling, workers remove about one third of the nuclear fuel—which remains hot and highly radioactive for years—and place it into large pools of water that are kept at a constant low temperature. Such wet storage prevents the spent fuel from overheating, melting and possibly catching fire. An accident or terrorist attack that cripples a wet pool's ability to keep spent fuel at a safe, low temperature could cause the metal coating around the fuel to burn and the fuel itself to melt, releasing a large amount of dangerous radioactive material.
After about five years in storage, spent fuel has cooled to the point where workers can safely place it in dry cask storage. A typical wet pool is 45 feet deep, 40 feet long and 40 feet wide and can hold 1,000 or more tons of fuel. By contrast, each dry cask is about 17 feet high and 9 feet across and can hold only about 15 tons of spent fuel. Although dry casks are still vulnerable to safety and security hazards, fuel in a dry cask is less likely to catch fire and terrorists would have to break open many dry casks to release the same amount of radioactivity that a wet pool could release.
Instead of taking advantage of the increased safety dry casks offer as soon as the fuel rods can be moved from pools, plant owners often fill their wet pools to capacity before moving spent fuel into dry cask storage. As wet pools fill up, workers must arrange the fuel inside more densely. Such "dense-packing" increases the strain on wet pool systems by forcing them to dissipate more heat. At the same time, storing more spent fuel in a wet pool would have the potential to make an accident or terrorist attack that disrupts a pool's cooling system more devastating.
A large radiation release resulting from a wet pool fire could result in thousands of cancer deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in decontamination costs and economic damage, according to a 2004 study by UCS Senior Scientist Edwin Lyman, Princeton University professor Frank Von Hippel and consultant Jan Beyea published in the journal Science and Global Security. An attack on a dry cask storage area would, in most circumstances, result in a much smaller release of radioactivity and much less severe damage.
The Union of Concerned Scientists puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with citizens across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
