Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumNuclear power plant? Or storage dump for hot radioactive waste?
Robert Alvarez 11 AUGUST 2016
In addition to generating electricity, US nuclear power plants are now major radioactive waste management operations, storing concentrations of radioactivity that dwarf those generated by the country's nuclear weapons program. Because the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository remains in limbo, and other permanent storage plans are in their infancy, these wastes are likely to remain in interim storage at commercial reactor sites for the indefinite future. This reality raises one issue of particular concernhow to store the high-burnup nuclear fuel used by most US utilities. An Energy Department expert panel has raised questions that suggest neither government regulators nor the utilities operating commercial nuclear power plants understand the potential impact of used high-burnup fuel on storage and transport of used nuclear fuel, and, ultimately, on the cost of nuclear waste management.
Spent nuclear power fuel accumulated over the past 50 years is bound up in more than 241,000 long rectangular assemblies containing tens of millions of fuel rods. The rods, in turn, contain trillions of small, irradiated uranium pellets. After bombardment with neutrons in the reactor core, about 5 to 6 percent of the pellets are converted to a myriad of radioactive elements with half-lives ranging from seconds to millions of years. Standing within a meter of a typical spent nuclear fuel assembly guarantees a lethal radiation dose in minutes.
Heat from the radioactive decay in spent nuclear fuel is also a principal safety concern. Several hours after a full reactor core is offloaded, it can initially give off enough heat from radioactive decay to match the energy capacity of a steel mill furnace. This is hot enough to melt and ignite the fuels reactive zirconium cladding and destabilize a geological disposal site it is placed in. By 100 years, decay heat and radioactivity drop substantially but still remain dangerous. For these reasons, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) informed the Congress in 2013 that spent nuclear fuel is considered one of the most hazardous substances on Earth.
US commercial nuclear power plants use uranium fuel that has had the percentage of its key fissionable isotopeuranium 235increased, or enriched, from what is found in most natural uranium ore deposits. In the early decades of commercial operation, the level of enrichment allowed US nuclear power plants to operate for approximately 12 months between refueling. In recent years, however, US utilities have begun using what is called high-burnup fuel. This fuel generally contains a higher percentage of uranium 235, allowing reactor operators to effectively double the amount of time the fuel can be used, reducing the frequency of costly refueling outages. The switch to high-burnup fuel has been a major contributor to higher capacity factors and lower operating costs in the United States over the past couple of decades.
While this high-burnup trend may have improved the economics of nuclear power, the industry and its regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), have taken a questionable leap of faith that could, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, result in severe economic penalties and in operational limitations to nuclear plant operators. Evidence is mounting that spent high-burnup fuel poses little-studied challenges to the temporary used-fuel storage plans now in place and to any eventual arrangement for a long-term storage repository...
enough
(13,259 posts)in the future.
It serves the industry very well that virtually nobody is thinking about this element of the situation. If anybody thinks about it at all, it's seen as a local problem for each reactor, and there are nowhere near enough people paying attention in any given locality to have any impact at all.
I live near both Peach Bottom and Limerick, and I've lived here a long time, since before either of them was built. The level of expertise and vigilance these operations are going to require as they get older does not exist, at least not in our area.
6chars
(3,967 posts)OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)SpaceX hopes to launch a heavy-lift rocket this year:
http://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy
OK, so 1,500 Falcoln Heavy launches would get it all into orbit. Then, all you have to do is get them out of orbit, and that will take care of the US share.
The moon is closer. Lets stockpile it there. What could go wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999
6chars
(3,967 posts)i was just kidding, but interesting data from you on what it would actually take.
LouisvilleDem
(303 posts)...it is only because certain misguided individuals and organizations have fought against better, safer alternatives at every turn.
The anti-nuke crowd can only see things in black and white. The Yucca Mountain facility is "bad" because it is not perfect. The idea that Yucca Mountain can be imperfect but still be a vast improvement over the current situation seems to escape them.
hunter
(38,313 posts)Meanwhile, I can dump as much fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere as I please.
Our family cars pass smog checks, our water and space heating and local gas fired power plants are California certified, and the only limit on my fossil fuel use is our income.
I've burned more than my fair share of fossil fuels in my life. When I was young and wild I remember gasoline was essentially free. Me and my sometimes disreputable acquaintances were more concerned about the price of beer. I was making eight to ten dollars an hour, hours I chose, and I had car that went thirty plus miles on sixty four cents of gasoline.
Once I drove from Santa Monica to Berkeley just to ask a question of a UC professor who was ignoring me, probably with good reason.
We also drove all over the state, from San Onofre to Humboldt, as anti-nuclear activists.
I was the University Library -- Computer Lab -- Dumpster Diver Guy.
Protesting Diablo Canyon, I was nearby when Jerry Brown proclaimed "No NEW nukes." (Beyond Diablo Canyon, he meant.)
I also crossed paths with Helen Caldicott a few times.
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
Me and Hunter Lovins share a name too.
Tell me a story.
enough
(13,259 posts)Nobody is more pessimistic about the level of competency and honesty of the people running things and doing the work than these people.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Nuclear advocates never tired of using the Japanese expansion of nuclear power as proof of their vision for nuclear; a vision where human greed, bad judgement, indifference, and incompetence were nothing but hateful claims by anti-technology zealots.