Straight talk about spent fuel risks

Richard Bryan

Friday, April 1, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Nuclear industry spokespeople and some members of Congress have been very vocal of late suggesting that the nuclear accident in Japan requires restarting the defunct Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository program. These sources assert that moving spent fuel to a Nevada repository is needed to eliminate or drastically reduce the risks associated with failures of spent fuel cooling pools (such as what occurred at the Japanese reactors) at U.S. nuclear power plants.

The refrain one hears is that it’s safer to move spent fuel out of these cooling pools at 100-plus reactor sites to a single, isolated location in Nevada.

The problem with this assertion is that it’s entirely wrong and misleading. There could be 100 Yucca Mountains up and operating, and the risks involved with spent fuel pools at reactor sites would still be there.

Wherever there is a nuclear reactor, there must be a water-filled pool to cool the spent fuel for five years or more after it is removed from the reactor. Whether there is a repository at Yucca Mountain or anywhere else will have no effect on spent fuel pool risks. The only way to avoid this risk would be to shut down all the reactors.

Fortunately, the answer to minimizing risks posed by cooling pools at reactors is relatively simple and straightforward. All utility companies that operate nuclear power plants should be required do what many are already doing — move spent fuel that is more than 5 years old and is capable of being taken out of the cooling pool to safe, passive dry storage at individual reactor sites.

Such dry storage virtually eliminates any chance that the spent fuel will overheat because of water leaks in the pool or cooling system malfunctions.

Dry storage is 100 percent passive. It relies on natural air circulation to cool the fuel. It requires no moving parts and no active monitoring.

The dry storage containers are large, stainless steel cylinders placed in steel and concrete overpacks or vaults. They are lined up on concrete pads within the security perimeters of the reactor sites. These pads can even be recessed in the ground for added security.

Dry storage virtually eliminates risks of the type we are seeing in Japan, where spent fuel is burning because of overheating. And, unlike a repository (at Yucca Mountain or somewhere else), dry storage can be done immediately, as opposed to waiting decades before a disposal or storage location could be ready.

So why haven’t U.S. utility companies already maximized the use of dry storage at reactor sites? Again, the answer seems relatively simple, and it’s a four-letter word: cost. Regardless of the risks, it’s cheaper for utilities to maintain the status quo, loading more and more spent fuel into pools and keeping it there longer than necessary because it’s less expensive to do it that way.

Instead of disingenuously using the disaster in Japan in an attempt to stampede Congress into restarting the failed Yucca project, the nuclear industry should be using its considerable influence to require utility companies to make maximum use of dry storage technologies.

Richard Bryan is a former Nevada attorney general, governor and U.S. senator. He currently is chairman of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, which provides state oversight of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project and other nuclear activities in Nevada.