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High Level Radioactive
Waste - Spent Fuel Rods
Radioactive fuel rods are
placed in the reactor core to produce the heat needed to generate
electricity. After one or two years the fuel rods are no longer useful for
producing
electricity; however they remain intensely radioactive and thermally hot. To
protect the
public from intense radiation and to cool the rods down, the spent fuel rods
are placed in a
pool of cool water.
Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool

The pool in Pilgrim nuclear plant's
primary reactor building
Holds over 2,200 spent" fuel rods totaling more than a
million pounds of radioactive material.
Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger
Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool
contains far more radioactive fuel than the reactor’s core. The
core holds 580 rods, about 1/3 are removed at each refueling outage to the
spent fuel pool –
outages occur every 24 months.
Contents:
Spent fuel pools were designed to be temporary and to store
only a small fraction
of what they currently hold. The original plan was to reprocess the used
fuel rods,
extracting material suitable for nuclear bombs and adding new materials to
make useable fuel
rods for reactors. However reprocessing spent fuel ended under President
Carter. Our nation
decided that there was enough weapons grade nuclear material in the world.
At that point the
federal government promised to build a permanent national repository. In the
interim,
reactors could store on site. A federal repository has not been built;
therefore more and
more waste is piling up on site.
Pilgrim’s pool was designed to hold 880 assemblies. Spring 2004, it held
2,600 rods in the
same place by packing the assemblies closer together. The NRC has approved
storage at Pilgrim
for 3,859 assemblies in order to allow them to complete their current
license (2012).
The pool is a 45 foot deep concrete “swimming pool” that stores highly
radioactive fuel
assemblies after their removal from the core. These fuel assemblies are
thermally very hot
when they are first removed from the core. Most important, they are
extremely “hot”
radioactively – so hot that Federal regulations require an eventual
repository be able to
isolate fuel from the environment for 10,000 years. Spent fuel pools contain
some of the
largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.
The pool must be filled with water because the fuel releases heat and
radiation. The water
must be continuously cooled to remove the heat generated by the assemblies.
If the cooling is
halted, the fuel pool would heat up and boil away. If the water boils off or
is drained, the
spent fuel will overheat, melt, or catch on fire. NRC concedes a fire would
be so intense and
so much radiation released in the area that it could not be extinguished.
Federal studies
also show that thousands of people could die from the radiation released in
a spent fuel pool
accident.
Risk: Spent Fuel Security/ Accident
The spent fuel pool is designed to remain intact following an earthquake but
it is not
designed to withstand aircraft impacts and explosive forces.
Several events could cause a loss of pool water including leakage,
evaporation, siphoning,
pumping, aircraft impact, accidental or deliberate drop of a fuel transport
cask, reactor
failure, or an explosion from inside or outside.
Water loss is likely to result in a catastrophic fire. The spent fuel would
be exposed to air
and steam, the zirconium cladding that surrounds the rods would melt and
catch fire. The NRC
conceded that such a fire could not be extinguished – the radiation doses in
the pool would
be lethal – the fire could rage for days. Also the risk of a fire persists.
NRC stated in an
October 2000 study that the possibility of a zirconium fire cannot be
dismissed even many
years after a final reactor shutdown.
A spent fuel pool fire and release would be a regional and national
disaster. The spent fuel
pool contains many times more radioactivity than the core. Especially
problematic is the
large amount of Cesium-137; currently there is about 30 million curies in
Pilgrim’s pool.
Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years and gives off a highly penetrating
form of radiation.
It is absorbed in the food chain as if it were potassium. According to the
NRC as much as
100% of the Cesium-137 would be released into the environment in a pool
fire. For comparison,
Chernobyl released 40% of the reactor core’s 6 million curies of Cesium-137.
Pilgrim’s spent
fuel pool has more Cesium-137 than was deposited by all the atmospheric
nuclear weapons tests
in North America combined.
Densely packed pools like Pilgrim’s are especially prone to fire. To avoid
criticality of
rods placed close together, neutron absorbing panels are placed between the
assemblies. The
extra panels will restrict air and water circulation if there is a water
loss. Further, if
the equipment collapses, as might occur in a terrorist attack, air and water
flow to the
stacked assemblies would be obstructed causing a fire, according to a NRC
report.
Coalition
Demands Solution for Nuclear Spent Fuel Pool Vulnerability to Terrorist
Attacks - reactors designed like Pilgrim NPS (GE Mark I &II, BWRs)
spotlighted as especially dangerous.
On August 10, 2004, a coalition of national,
regional, and local environmental, public interest, and nuclear watchdog
organizations petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to hold
emergency enforcement hearings on a significant structural vulnerability to
terrorism existing at 32 U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors located in
15 states.
The petition spotlights the General Electric
Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactor (BWR) designs (32 reactors,
nationwide) where large inventories of highly radioactive waste – used
reactor fuel rods – are currently stored in densely packed elevated storage
pools, above and outside the primary containment structure.
Their nuclear waste storage pools are located
near the roof and are vulnerable to a variety of attacks from above, below,
and on three sides. Massachusetts citizens live in the shadow of two of
these highly vulnerable reactors – Pilgrim in Southeastern Massachusetts and
Vermont Yankee, just over our northwestern border.

To read the petition, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/BWRpetition.pdf.
To read the annex to the petition, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/BWRpetitionannex.pdf. Note: view
diagram spent fuel pool page 33
To read
Supplemental filing of April 19, 2005 to
NRC regarding the August 10, 2004 petition on the vulnerability of GE
boiling water reactors as confirmed by findings in the National
Academy of Sciences April 2005 public version of its classified report to
Congress “The Safety and Security of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage,” visit
http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/security/nscnas2206sup08102004.pdf
Safer Storage Solutions

The risk to the public can be greatly reduced by requiring low-density pool
storage for
recently unloaded fuel and secured dry casks for the rest.
Advantages
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Avoids tight packing
of thousands of assemblies in the pool, where loss of coolant
water/exposure to air would cause them to ignite within a few hours
due to the reaction
between water, air and immense heat. A fire could not be put out –
the area would be too
radioactive. |
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Because the spent fuel
pool is located inside the main reactor building, a spent fuel
pool accident is likely to result in a core accident, too. |
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Dry storage minimizes
the chance of an accident with thousands of assemblies: There
are generally only 2 dozen assemblies in each dry cask, compared to
Pilgrim’s pool that has
2,278 today and will have 3,859 by 2012. An accident would result in
the release of 10 times
more high-level radioactivity than released in Chernobyl –
contaminating an area (3) times
Massachusetts. |
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No risk for dry casks
in case of power outage. Waste assemblies cooled by passive
air convection. |
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Since there are no
moving parts such as fans, pumps or blowers, dry storage has no
risk of mechanical breakdowns – they are cheaper to maintain. |
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Dry storage is in use
extensively in the US – at decommissioned plants and at over a
dozen operating plants. No others are building new pools. |
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The NRC admits dry
storage has fewer failure modes. The NRC has approved a range of
dry storage designs. |
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Casks can be
multi-purpose, suitable for both storage and shipment. Spent fuel
rods
will have to be put into casks eventually for transport to a
permanent repository. Pilgrim
should be required to place the rods in casks now rather than wait
until later, when it could
be too late. |
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Low-density pool
storage was once a common practice at nuclear plants and poses a
lower level of hazard than high-density pool storage.
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Dry Casks Need to Be
Secured or Hardened - two proposals

Dry Casks
Typically when industry moves
to dry cask storage, they place the casks on a concrete pad –
like bowling pins waiting for a strike. However, it is not September 10th;
therefore it is
necessary to place them in a less vulnerable position. The schematic below
by Dr. Gordon
Thompson makes sense.
PROPOSAL #1
Dispersed Hardened Cask Storage Proposal

SCHEMATIC VIEW OF PROPOSED DESIGN
FOR HARDENED, DRY STORAGE
ROBUST STORAGE OF SPENT
NUCLEAR FUEL: An Interim Report
Gordon Thompson, November 2002 (A report commissioned by Citizens Awareness
Network)
Disperse casks so that they are a more difficult target. Pilgrim has
plenty of room; it sits
on 1600 acres.

PROPOSAL #2
Holtec Underground Storage Proposal
Holtec International,
a major cask design and manufacturing company, will ask the NRC to approve
an underground design for a dry storage cask facility (NuclearFuel, Vol. 29,
Number 9, April 26, 2004).
According to Holtec’s
President/CEO the design is a low-profile system – all but two feet of which
would be below ground – offers “the next level of protection against
terrorist attacks.”
The new system uses
the same inner canister and ancillary equipment NRC has already approved as
part of their Hi-Storm 100 cask system. The new system known as Hi-Storm
100U, uses a large concrete block with metal-lined cavities to hold spent
fuel storage canisters. Once the canisters are in place, a lid is secured to
each cavity. Canisters are passively cooled and can hold the same heat load
as the existing system.
Holtec says that the
system can be used at any site, even on a coastal plain or site with a high
water table, because the metal canisters are welded and completely sealed
off from the surrounding substrate. Preservatives will be applied to protect
the concrete from groundwater. A surveillance program would monitor fro
groundwater.
Some industry
spokespersons commented that the underground design “potentially fuels
misperceptions” among the public that spent fuel already in dry storage
needs to be made more secure…
Will we again see
public safety enhancements go by the board due to pressure from industry to
justify business as usual – perpetuating the cheapest way out?
Finances – Who will pay for
Safer Dry Storage?
The electricity market has been deregulated and this works against public
safety. In a deregulated market there is no longer a pool of captive customers to pay for
uneconomic operating costs or expensive capital additions – like secured dry casks.
Also the owners of Pilgrim are limited liability companies with little to no cash reserves.
Hence there is resistance to move wastes to safer dry storage. Either they have to be
forced to do so by regulators or use federal monies.
There is a precedent for using federal monies for public safety especially
post 9/11. The
federal government promised that a federal repository would be ready by
1998. It wasn’t. Hence it is reasonable to argue that dry casks for waste generated under the
current license should be paid for by federal monies, in total or in part.
Currently casks cost 1 to 2 million dollars per cask. Pilgrim NPS, for
example, has
approximately 440 tons of fuel which would cost about $71 million dollars to
place it all into dry cask storage.
Yucca Mountain
Proposed
Federal Repository, Won’t Solve Waste Problem –any time soon
Yucca is not a sure thing –
legal suits are pending. Yucca would not open until 2010 at the earliest. It will take 30-40 years to transfer waste from around the nation.
We do not know where Pilgrim will be on the federal shipping schedule. Plant owners can
sell or trade their place. They do not have to unload the entire inventory either. Pilgrim’s
operating license ends 2012. However in 2005, they are likely to start the application process
to extend their license – produce more waste.
Furthermore, Yucca, if it is ever built, will run out of room before it can
take the spent fuel from existing reactors, to say nothing about the waste from re-licensed
reactors.
As of 2002, there were 44,000 metric tons of commercial spent fuel and
12,000 metric tons of defense waste slated for Yucca. The nation’s nuclear reactors generate 2,000
metric tons each year (Nuclear Energy Institute, “Common Objections to the Yucca Mountain
Project” What Science Really Says,” 2003). By 2013 the total waste generated by our
nation’s nuclear reactors will have exceeded the 77,000 ton limit for Yucca designated by
Congress. Therefore, Yucca will not provide storage for any waste generated after
2013. At present 20 nuclear reactors are licensed to operate beyond 2025. This means that now we
do not have one repository and we will need two. Plymouth will be a long-term waste site. It
must be stored more safely.
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Yucca Mountain Lawsuit; Court Overrules Government's
Lax Radiation Standards for Nuclear Waste - July, 2004
July 9, 2004 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
D.C. Circuit ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
illegally set its radiation release standards for groundwater for the
proposed high-level radioactive waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The EPA set 10,000 years as the period during which radiation in the
groundwater cannot exceed drinking water standards at the site's boundary,
but this time frame would not protect the health of future generations. As
the court ruled, the Energy Policy Act requires that the EPA determine
public health and safety standards for Yucca Mountain "based upon and
consistent with" the National Academy of Sciences" recommendations. The
Academy's recommendation is that the compliance period should extend through
the time of the peak risk for radiation doses from the repository - 300,000
years or more.
Given
this ruling, the Yucca Mountain Project should be finished. The U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) must show that it can prevent groundwater
contamination above drinking water standards at the compliance boundary for
300,000 years - a standard that the DOE's own analysis shows the Yucca
Mountain site cannot meet. The EPA faces the choice of either appealing the
decision or revising its standard. Proponents of Yucca may go to Congress
for a rule change so they will not have to follow the National Academy of
Science standards.
You can read the court decision at:
http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200407/01-1258a.pdf

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Yucca Mountain Data Under Fire
– March 2005
Science to support
Nevada nuclear waste
repository fabricated
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347 - Copyright © 2005
E-mails and other documents released by a
House subcommittee last week show that government scientists fabricated data
needed to support construction of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca
Mountain, in Nevada.
At a House hearing, three representatives
from Nevada grilled
Department of Energy officials and told them to stop site work until an
independent investigation into the depth of the duplicity is conducted. DOE
officials, however, said they were doing their own investigations, and so
far, they believe no evidence demonstrates that the underlying science for
the project has been compromised.
The revelations, first made public by DOE in
mid-March, have led to ongoing criminal investigations by the Offices of
Inspector General for the Interior and Energy Departments and the FBI. At a
minimum, the investigations will delay DOE's press to file a license
application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the repository.
Although only partial and redacted e-mails
and other documents have been made public, they show that scientists
admitted to one another that they were keeping separate records--one set for
quality assurance inspections and another, accurate, set. They also describe
compromises needed to overcome difficulties in meeting schedules on the huge
project. The messages were exchanged in the late 1990s and focused on
science and models for water incursion through the mountain and climate
projections for future centuries--contentious issues that are critical to
the project's success.
This latest problem joins others, such as a
court decision last summer throwing out the repository's radiation standard,
which determines how much radioactivity may be released to the environment
over the millennia the waste is radioactive.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Transportation
Shipping Pilgrim’s Spent Fuel Rods to Yucca
By 2012, Pilgrim (Boiling Water
Reactor, BWR) will have 3,859 spent radioactive fuel assemblies – 2,442 in
2004. If re-licensed to operate until 2032, Pilgrim will have generated
nearly 8,000 all toll.
Shipping Rail Casks
DOE prefers shipping waste mostly by train. A rail spur is needed to connect
eastern Nevada to the site. It can not be built until Yucca is ready for
shipments and will take six years to build. Until the spur is completed
(2016, if you believe DOE that Yucca will open in 2010, or 2021, if you
believe the Government Accounting Office), DOE proposes to ship "legal
weight truck sized casks" piggyback on train cars out to eastern NV. There,
they'd be off loaded onto semi trucks for the cross NV drive to deliver them
to Yucca until the rail line gets finished. However, even this scenario is
uncertain because DOE's own Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS,
February 2002) for Yucca ruled against this piggy back idea, citing that it
would increase worker doses to radioactivity because of all the extra
handling/loading operations required.
Pilgrim does not have direct access to rail. According to DOE (FEIS,
February 2002), Pilgrim proposed barge shipments to Boston – to transfer the
casks to rail in the city. Communities along the coast and Boston are likely
to have something to say.
DOE’s 2002 FEIS, J.1.2.2.2 Routes for Shipping Rail Casks from Sites Not
Served by a Railroad Figure J-9. Routes analyzed for barge
transportation from sites to nearby railheads (page 4 of 4).
Very long, heavy haul trucks
(huge monsters, with a pusher truck in back, puller truck in front, and
scores or even hundreds of tires with maximum speed of 5 mph or less) could
also be used to get the waste from Pilgrim to the nearest rail head.
Either way, barge or truck, the question remains whether Pilgrim has the
capability to lift train sized casks. The casks weigh 100 to 150 tons fully
loaded with irradiated fuel.
Trains hold 68 BWR assemblies per train sized casks – (1) cask per rail car.
Assuming Pilgrim can take this option, a big assumption, in order to ship
the spent fuel accumulated to 2012 would require approximately 46 train
casks.
Trucks: hold 9 BWR assemblies
per truck sized casks – (1) cask per truck – requiring approximately 428
trucks to ship waste accumulated by 2012.
Highway Truck and Rail
Routes
Figure J-45. Highway and rail routes used to analyze transportation impacts
- Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
[http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/documents/feis_2/vol_2/apndx_j/index2_j.htm]

Resources: Transportation
U.S. Department of Energy, FEIS, February 2002
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/documents/feis_2/vol_2/apndx_j/index2_j.htm
State of Nevada, Agency for Nuclear Projects
http://state.nv.us/nucwaste/
Nuclear Information Resource Service
http://www.nirs.org/roadsrails/roadsrailshome.htm
Public Citizen, Critical Mass Energy Project
http://www.citizen.org/CMEP
Resources: High Level Waste
1. NCWarn
http://www.ncwarn.org/Campaigns/HighLevelWaste/default.htm
Reports and Documents accessible on NCWARN’s Website:
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NC WARN's Nuclear Risk
Reduction Plan
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27 Attorneys General urge
Congress to protect
us from attacks against nuclear power plants
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NC WARN's Nuclear Risk
Reduction Plan
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Robust Storage of Spent
Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security, prepared by Dr.
Gordon Thompson, Director of the Institute for Resource and Security
Studies.
REPORTS
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2003: Princeton/MIT
Release Study on Reducing Spent Fuel Hazards; a collection of authors
released
a report detailing the perils of high-density storage of spent nuclear
fuel in the United States. The report also outlines clear, simple steps
that can be taken to reduce the risk of this spent fuel.
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25 June 2003: "Robust
Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security."
Prepared by Dr. Gordon Thompson, Director of the Institute for
Resource and Security Studies.
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19 May 2003: Pre-deployed
Radiological Weapon: Reducing the Targetability of Shearon Harris
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31 March 2003:
Princeton/MIT Study on Reducing the hazards from stored spent
power-reactor fuel in the United States
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12 September 2002: Nuclear
power plant security workers call nuclear security a joke a report
by Project on Government Oversight.
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1997: Summary of study
conducted by the Brookhaven National Laboratory on the health and
economic consequences of an accident from high-level nuclear waste
storage
2. Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research http://www.ieer.org
see: IEER NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN June 4, 2002
Read about "low level"
waste
PilgrimWatch.org
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