nuclear-news

Dead nuclear reactors still leave an intractable wastes problem

Security, storage concerns linger at closed nuclear sites US regulators still seek safe site for waste, Boston Globe,   By David Abel GLOBE STAFF  NOVEMBER 26, 2015 VERNON, Vt. — Across from an elementary school, a short road leads to a gate topped by barbed wire and a stark sign that warns in large letters:

“Security personnel are authorized to use deadly force.”

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant stopped producing power last year, but rigorous security measures, including heavily armed guards in bulletproof towers, are still in place and will be for decades to protect hundreds of tons of radioactive waste that remain behind the gate. The spent fuel will stay here along a bend of the Connecticut River, just 10 miles from the Massachusetts border, until the federal government can resolve a decades-old political battle over where to store the waste from the nation’s nuclear plants.

Across the United States, there are 22 decommissioned plants that have become heavily guarded repositories of spent fuel, their owners waiting indefinitely for a federal decision on where to permanently store the radioactive waste. About 150 miles away in Plymouth, Mass., the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station will enter the same phase after it closes sometime in the next four years and moves its waste into massive casks.

The issue of nuclear waste has long been a political quandary, one that has become increasingly urgent as more of the nation’s aging nuclear plants are shuttered…….

“We don’t think Yucca Mountain will be a viable approach,” said Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz during a recent meeting with reporters and editors at the Globe.

Moniz said his staff is reviewing a proposal to build a temporary storage site in Andrews County, Texas, which already hosts two radioactive waste disposal facilities. The government will also have to overcome concerns and potential challenges over transporting the fuel through a variety of jurisdictions.

Until then, the waste will remain atop specially built concrete pads at the nation’s nuclear plants. That means the properties cannot be redeveloped for other uses, major security measures will remain in force at sites scattered across the country, and many of their neighbors will continue to live in fear.

“We’re talking about a colossal amount of dangerous waste,” said Deb Katz, executive director of Citizens Awareness Network, who lives 18 miles from Vermont Yankee. “The radioactive plume from an accident could travel more than 100 miles within 24 hours, depending on which way the wind blows.”

Entergy Corp., a Louisiana-based conglomerate that owns the plants in Vernon and Plymouth, plans a decommissioning process at Pilgrim similar to the one it has started at Vermont Yankee.

On its compact campus in Vernon, Vermont Yankee’s remaining 285 employees — about 600 people worked at the plant until last December — have transferred all of the remaining fuel to a 37-foot-deep pool suspended seven stories above ground in a concrete containment building. There are 2,996 spent fuel assemblies cooling in the pool.

After they’re moved into safer, dry storage, the plant will have 58 of the 18-foot-tall, 300,000-pound casks on the outdoor pad along the Connecticut River.

Activists who live near Vermont Yankee have urged the plant to move the spent fuel more quickly from the pools, which they fear could catch fire if an earthquake or other natural disaster caused a leak or cut power to the plant. They have also raised concerns about storing the casks closely together out in the open, rather than below ground or in a hardened building.

“Should someone be interested in shooting them up, they’re sitting ducks,” said Nancy Braus of the Safe and Green Campaign in Brattleboro. “They’re easy targets, very visible.”………. David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.    https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/11/26/the-long-road-decommissioning-nuclear-power-plant/k5VWUQzLKCIz2VuYs8RhoO/story.html

November 28, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes