nuclear-news

Vogtle’s nuclear waste pools close to full – where to put new wastes?

New Plant Vogtle reactors praised despite unresolved nuclear waste plan Augusta Chronicle By Rob Pavey Staff Writer Feb. 17, 2012 Nuclear expansion was touted this week as the answer to America’s energy needs, but there is still a question of what to do with the spent fuel the process creates.

Just a few hundred yards past a Burke County podium where Energy Secretary Steven Chu
cheered the $14 billion expansion of Plant Vogtle, a lesser known construction project is under way to add storage for spent fuel that could be stranded indefinitely here in Georgia.
The waste, part of 2,490 metric tons of the material statewide, has been accumulating in concrete-lined pools since Vogtle’s first two reactors went online in 1987 and 1989. Those pools will be full in 2014, however, and the cancellation of the government’s Yucca Mountain
waste repository in Nevada has left the fate of spent fuel from all
104 U.S. reactors in limbo…..
During his visit to Georgia on Wednesday, Chu addressed the issue by
announcing a “working group” to explore the recently released
recommendations.
“Finding a workable way to end the stalemate over the safe and secure
storage of used nuclear fuel is one of the most important things we
can do to support this vital industry,” he said.
Possible options could include the controversial practice of
reprocessing spent fuel to recover usable materials, but Blue Ribbon
Commission’s commissioners concluded years, and possibly decades, of
additional research would be needed to fine-tune such technology…..
Environmental activists, however, believe Chu’s committee will meet
overwhelming opposition if an attempt is made to store spent nuclear
fuel at a site that already houses huge volumes of defense waste.
“I can assure you the environmental groups in South Carolina are going
to be engaged actively and would be strongly opposed to it,” said Tom
Clements, the nonproliferation policy director for the Alliance for
Nuclear Accountability.
He said SRS is unsuitable for a permanent repository because of the
region’s geology…..
And with no clear plan in sight for a national geologic repository,
the NRC revealed in a Federal Register notice last year that it has
drafting longer-term rules for storing both spent fuel and high-level
radioactive wastes onsite for as long as 120 years……
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/government/2012-02-17/new-plant-vogtle-reactors-praised-despite-unresolved-nuclear-waste-plan?v=1329499138

February 18, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes