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THE
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HOW TO BETTER DEFEND SPENT FUEL Problem National Coalition Petitions NRC: Pilgrim and 31 other reactor's spent fuel pools - especially vulnerable to attack August 10, 2004, a national coalition petitioned the NRC for emergency enforcement action on reactors designed like Pilgrim (BWR Mark I & II's) because of their structural vulnerability to terrorism. Pilgrim, like 31 other reactors, are constructed so that their fuel storage pools are literally on the roof of the reactor building in structures that NRC identified, pre 9/11, as vulnerable to aircraft penetration. The same study identified that the resulting nuclear waste fire involving hundreds of tons of irradiated nuclear fuel would cause tens of thousands of fatalities out to 500 miles. Click here for the Petition, Annex to the Petition and list of affected reactors http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/security/securityhome.htm
Yucca Mountain, the proposed federal repository, will not
open for many years, if ever. The Federal Government’s investigative arm (GAO) now says Yucca will not open before 2015, and it will take 30-40 years to ship the nation’s current waste. Litigation is pending. Who knows when Pilgrim would ship once a site is open? They can trade or sell their spot on the shipping schedule and they do not have to send it all right away, anyway.
Also waste generated in the United States by 2011, or even before, will
fill Yucca Mountain's maximum legal capacity. Then, the nation will have
to build a second repository somewhere east of the Mississippi. We need a safer solution over the
long, intervening years.
There is a safer way to store spent fuel – secured dry cask storage. “Secured” means that it is made resistant to both attack and human error. This must be achieved in three ways.
Use the pool only for recently unloaded fuel that is too hot to place in casks. The pool now will have low-density racks, like its original design, and this will allow for air circulation to keep the rods cool if water is lost - allowing for remedial action. This makes the reactor a less attractive target and if there is an attack the consequences far less severe. 11.
Contact:
Dr. Gordon Thompson
Institute
for Resource and Security Studies - 27 Ellsworth Avenue, Cambridge, MA
02139, USA Phone:
(617) 491-5177 Fax: (617) 491-6904 Email: irss@igc.org
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