nuclear-news

Transfer of Vermont Yankee’s dangerous nuclear used fuel trash to dry storage

Vermont Yankee to start moving spent nuclear fuel into dry storage in 2017 http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/vermont_yankee_to_start_moving.html     By Mary Serreze | Special to The Republican On December 20, 2015 Entergy plans to start moving Vermont Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel into dry cask storage in 2017, two years earlier than originally anticipated, reports the online Vermont Digger.

The Louisiana-based Entergy announced the decision Wednesday, but the idea was first introduced in an October filing with the Vermont Public Service Board, as part of the company’s bid for approval to build a second concrete pad for spent fuel storage at the Vernon, Vermont site, located on the banks of the Connecticut River.

The 620-megawatt Vernon plant, which began operations in 1972, stopped producing power Dec. 29, but most of its spent fuel remains in wet storage in a pool inside the plant’s reactor building.

While dry storage is considered safer than wet storage, concerns have been raised about the transfer process, in which fuel is pulled from the pool, placed in casks, loaded onto a large, tracked vehicle nicknamed “Cletus” and moved slowly to the spent fuel pad, Vermont Digger reports.

Entergy remains under a 2020 deadline to move the fuel into dry cask storage. Under the federally-sanctioned SAFSTOR process, full decommissioning could take up to 60 years. Under SAFSTOR, Vermont Yankee would be “mothballed” until its decommissioning fund reaches the level necessary to clean up the entire site.

State and regional officials, as well as critics of the plant, have raised concerns about the overall decommissioning project’s financing, as well as the presence of non-radiological and radiological waste at the site. The dry cask storage plan will be funded with a $145 million line of credit, which Entergy plans to repay by suing the U.S. Department of Energy for breach of its contract to remove spent nuclear fuel from the Vermont Yankee site.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the use of the plant’s decommissioning trust fund to pay for long-term fuel storage, although the state has challenged that decision in federal appeals court.

Mary Serreze can be reached at mserreze@gmail.com

December 24, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA, wastes