nuclear-news

After nuclear fuel has spent years in a reactor generating heat which becomes electricity, it ends up being “spent” and no longer yields power but remains very hot and radioactive. At that point it gets put into a cask like the one in this video and eventually buried at a designated dumping facility somewhere around the country.

I originally thought that waste could be held and kept at almost any of the nuclear power facilities around the U.S., but large quantities of waste like what we seem to be looking at in this truck are only taken to a few specific spots. Steve Kerekes of the Nuclear Energy Institute clarified that for me and said this particular haul from West Valley is likely headed to a place in Idaho or South Carolina.

What you can see clearly in the video is that the convoy carrying needs a pretty wide berth.

The sticker on the side of that tank, besides the one that says “RADIOACTIVE,” puts the total weight of it at just under 300,000 pounds. For context, a typical big rig doesn’t weigh more than 80,000 pounds. Guess that’s why this truck and trailer have so many wheels. (More wheels basically means more load-bearing ability. That’s why dually pickup trucks exist.)……..http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/nuclear-waste-travels-with-one-heck-of-an-entourage-1788264661