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Nuclear wastes from USS Enterprise headed for Idaho

Spent nuclear fuel from USS Enterprise is Idaho-bound The Spokesman Review, by Betsy Nov. 12, 2012  Spent nuclear fuel from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise will be sent to eastern Idaho for study and storage, the Idaho Falls Post Register reports. The Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is being decommissioned after participating in every major conflict with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Its spent nuclear fuel is expected to arrive in Idaho in 2015…….

 Dougan said the spent nuclear fuel once in Idaho will be examined to help with future reactor design research before being placed in storage.

“(The) fuel is transported via rail in specially designed railcars that meet the Department of Transportation shipping requirements for spent nuclear fuel,” he said. “The Navy has been managing spent fuel in Idaho since the late 1950s.”

The Navy will officially deactivate the Enterprise on Dec. 1, but it will take several more years for it to be decommissioned as its reactors are taken out.

After spent fuel is removed at Norfolk, the Navy plans to tow the Enterprise to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton in Washington state. The nuclear reactors will be cut out of the ship and barged to the Hanford nuclear reservation.

The reactors will be buried in a trench the Navy has been using since 1986 to bury radioactive reactors from other nuclear-powered vessels, mostly submarines.

Reactor disposal will take six to eight years. The rest of the Enterprise will be scrapped at Bremerton.  http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2012/nov/12/spent-nuclear-fuel-uss-enterprise-idaho-bound/

November 15, 2012 - Posted by | USA, wastes

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