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USA’s nuclear waste storage raises safety dangers

in light of the overheating of spent fuel at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, some elected officials have renewed calls to remove waste from nuclear plants, many of which are near heavily populated areas…..the nuclear industry has raised the risk of a fire by reconfiguring its pools over the years to squeeze in more fuel.

Storage of Nuclear Waste Gets New Scrutiny.  WSJ.com, 24 March 11, By STEPHEN POWER The nuclear crisis in Japan is reviving a battle over what should be done with the spent nuclear fuel that has been piling up around the U.S. for decades.

So far, the U.S. has generated roughly 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste—enough to fill a football field more than 15 feet deep, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO has projected that number will more than double to 153,000 metric tons by 2055.

Federal regulators say current methods of storing the waste at power plants are safe and can continue to be so for decades. Yet in light of the overheating of spent fuel at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, some elected officials have renewed calls to remove waste from nuclear plants, many of which are near heavily populated areas.

In a letter Monday to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Greg Jaczko and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, officials in Massachusetts urged the Obama administration to address the storage issue, saying some nuclear plants in or near Massachusetts use the same kind of fuel storage as the Fukushima plant.

“The events in Japan show that a breach can occur,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and state Senate President Therese Murray in their letter. They urged the administration to establish interim central repositories for the waste,……
Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser for the Energy Department, says the nuclear industry has raised the risk of a fire by reconfiguring its pools over the years to squeeze in more fuel.

Storage of Nuclear Waste Gets New Scrutiny – WSJ.com

March 26, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes