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Danger of nuclear fuel storage at Columbia Generating Station

Groups says fuel storage poses risk at the Northwest’s lone commercial nuclear plant  Oregon Live By Ted Sickinger| tsickinger@oregonian.com  Email the author | Follow on Twitter   November 20, 2014 The growing stockpile of spent nuclear fuel at the Northwest’s lone commercial nuclear plant poses a safety risk to the public in the event of an earthquake, according to a study sponsored by anti-nuclear groups.

The study of spent fuel storage at the Columbia Generating Station is the latest of several commissioned by the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Heart of America Northwest. They collectively suggest that the plant is an expensive and dangerous way for the Northwest to generate electricity, and that it ought to be closed.

The study was authored by nuclear critic Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. Officials at Energy Northwest, the utility consortium that operates the plant, say it is riddled with hyperbole, data errors and fear mongering. They also suggest its backers are extrapolating earthquake risks from recent seismic data that doesn’t apply to the plant site.

The 1,200 megawatt boiling-water reactor is located on the Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash. It opened in 1984 and has since generated some 368,000 spent fuel rods in 4,588 assemblies.

In the absence of a national repository, about 60 percent of that waste has been transferred to durable, dry-cask storage, a safety measure that Alvarez applauds. But the remaining 40 percent remains in the reactor’s spent fuel pool, a 350,000-gallon tank located at the top of the reactor building, six stories above ground……….http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2014/11/groups_says_fuel_storage_poses.html

November 22, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA