US stores spent nuclear fuel rods at 4 times pool capacity

[ensho]

https://www.readability.com/read?url=http://inteldaily.com/2011/03/us-stores-spent-nuclear-fuel-rods-at-4-times-pool-capacity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inteldaily%2Ffeeds+%28Inteldaily.com%29


In a recent interview with The Real News Network, Robert Alvarez, a nuclear policy specialist since 1975, reports that spent nuclear fuel in the United States comprises the largest concentration of radioactivity on the planet: 71,000 metric tons. Worse, since the Yucca Mountain waste repository has been scrapped due to its proximity to active faults (see last image), the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed reactor operators to store four times more waste in the spent fuel pools than they’re designed to handle.

Each Fukushima spent fuel pool holds about 100 metric tons, he says, while each US pool holds from 500-700 metric tons. A single pool fire would release catastrophic amounts of radioactivity, rendering 17-22,000 square miles of area uninhabitable. That’s about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont – from one pool fire.

In a March 25th interview, physician and nuclear activist Dr Helen Caldicott explains that “there’s far more radiation in each of the cooling pools than there is in each reactor itself…. Now the very short-lived isotopes have decayed away to nothing. But the long-lived ones, the very dangerous ones, Cesium, Strontium, Uranium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Neptunium, I mean really dangerous ones, the long-lived ones – that’s what the fuel pools hold.”

-long snip-

Nuclear waste is a serious, deadly and growing problem that the industry refuses to address, preferring to externalize disposal costs onto the public (even suing the US government to clean up its mess for them, under a 1998 law it no doubt favored).

Unless the radioactive waste is laser-launched toward the sun, we’re stuck with waste that will contaminate the biosphere for thousands of years, for the measly prize of 25-30 years of electricity, as nuclear activist and mathematician Gordon Edwards so eloquently explained. The risk far outweighs the benefit; this energy choice exemplifies the insanity of the nuclear industry and its government protectors.

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[SecularMotion]

1. Nuclear Waste Storage Raises Concerns At VT Yankee, NE Plants

VERNON, Vt. -- The nuclear crisis in Japan is bringing new attention to the ways nuclear waste is being disposed of and stored in New England, especially considering that the United States does not have a national disposal site for waste.

A special investigative series from Hearst Newspapers and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting looked at Indian Point in New York, along with the seven nuclear power plants located in New England.

The report found that many of those plants are beyond their initial designated capacity for storage of nuclear spent-fuel. In each case, the storage of additional spent-fuel was approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

At the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, located just over the New Hampshire state line in Vernon, Vt., the report found that the plant is storing five-times the spent-rods that it was originally designated for.

http://www.wmur.com/r/27338880/detail.html

[Rady-Columbus]

9. Yankee Nuke plant article

thanks for posting this... the VT site should get as much attn as Diablo Canyon is getting.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Great article. But, it will be a cold day in hell when this country approves a disposal facility.

Sometimes we can be so incredibly stupid.

[PoliticAverse]

7. In whose backyard do you want to put it ? n/t

[Buzz Clik]

8. And there it is -- the infinite loop.

It's that mindset that has brought us to this place.

How about we put the waste in the backyard of those who are using the power generated by the nukes? That way, everyone gets to share in the risk, and nobody has to protest having the stuff transported across their state.

I like it!

[RC]

3. I don't know what "laser-launched" means, but If one of those rockets blows up

it would be far worse than anything now. Think dirty bomb on a large scale.

[Rady-Columbus]

10. Laser launched nuke waste won't explode

here's a detailed article (linked in my original piece) explaining how and why laser launching nuclear waste toward the sun is a better option than storing it on Earth

of course, the best course is to ban the use of nuclear energy

[Rady-Columbus]

11. here's the link

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/437/1

[RC]

12. Hiring Superman would be more realistic for the job.

This is right out of a 1950's science fiction. By the time it get perfected, the fuel rods will be safe to handle with your bare hands. :rofl:

[gratuitous]

4. The risk outweighs the benefit? Says who?

Some people are making a shitload of money off of nuclear power. So much that they can actually hire people to stooge for them on line, edumacating us all on the wonders and virtues of nuclear power (others will be gulled and do it for free). Sure, there are tons of spent fuel rods just sitting around all over the country, but they're pretty safe right this minute. And for many foreseeable minutes well into the future. If a problem crops up, sure it will suck to be in the area, but the plant owners are well outside those boundaries, and they have the resources to flee far away on short notice, so they should be okay.

Seems like a wonderful cost/benefit ratio. For some.

[Buzz Clik]

13. Some environmental groups have been useful idiots in this mess.

They propagate fear and block progress at every turn during the plans for disposal.

[Turbineguy]

5. If we were paying

say $8.00 per gallon for gasoline and perhaps $0.25 per KW for electricity, a sane and workable nuclear energy policy would suddenly emerge.

[jwirr]

6. Which means they are located in any part of the USA that has a nuke. nt

[reformist2]

14. We need to reconsider Yucca Mountain, or some other place to put this $#*!.

Leaving all this "spent fuel" in hundreds of unprotected pools all over the country is totally unacceptable.