Yucca Mountain

[chino1969]

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29534497/.../t/billion-later-nuclear-waste-site-dead-end/
Years later there are still no plans for the long term storage of our commercial nuclear reactor's spent fuel or reprocessing. Every commercial nuclear plant in the U.S. has to store it's spent fuel in 125 ton casks at the facility above ground. Those casks were slated for storage at Yucca Mountain.

 

[qslim]

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29534497/.../t/billion-later-nuclear-waste-site-dead-end/
Years later there are still no plans for the long term storage of our commercial nuclear reactor's spent fuel or reprocessing. Every commercial nuclear plant in the U.S. has to store it's spent fuel in 125 ton casks at the facility above ground. Those casks were slated for storage at Yucca Mountain.

That article is from 2009, are you saying spent nuclear fuel has been accumulating at a rate of 2k tons/year above ground outside?

 

[chino1969]

That article is from 2009, are you saying spent nuclear fuel has been accumulating at a rate of 2k tons/year above ground outside?

Precisely. I worked in the commercial nuclear industry and was involved in the ISFSI (Interim Spent Fuel Storage Initiative) before our plant ran out of storage space in the spent fuel pool inside containment. We loaded our first spent fuel storage cask some 20 years ago. When I retired in 2017 there were over 70 fully loaded casks sitting on a secure concrete pad above ground and another pad was built to store future casks. All of these casks were designed to be shipped to the Yucca Mountain repository. Every commercial nuclear plant in the U.S. has a similar number of casks stored the same way.

 

[qslim]

Precisely. I worked in the commercial nuclear industry and was involved in the ISFSI (Interim Spent Fuel Storage Initiative) before our plant ran out of storage space in the spent fuel pool inside containment. We loaded our first spent fuel storage cask some 20 years ago. When I retired in 2017 there were over 70 fully loaded casks sitting on a secure concrete pad above ground and another pad was built to store future casks. All of these casks were designed to be shipped to the Yucca Mountain repository. Every commercial nuclear plant in the U.S. has a similar number of casks stored the same way.

Wow that's shocking, though I don't know anything about that sector. Do you think the shuttering of Yuca Mtn was political or is there a legit logistical reason why spent fuel isn't stored there anymore?

 

[chino1969]

Wow that's shocking, though I don't know anything about that sector. Do you think the shuttering of Yuca Mtn was political or is there a legit logistical reason why spent fuel isn't stored there anymore?

IMO it was more political than anything else. The Yucca Mountain site already went through an exhaustive environmental study for feasibility as required by the NRC. Billions would not have been invested in this facility if these environmental studies did not meet specific criteria. These casks are designed to be hit head on by a diesel locamotive, dropped from a certain height, etc. while still maintaining containment integrity. Harry Reid had a part in cancelling the project and Obama's Energy Secretary delivered the coups de gras. Notice the article mentions alternative technologies that are more desirable. There are none currently in use. The original plan for commercial nuclear power was to have a DOE (Dept. of Energy) facility re-process spent fuel and send re-processed fuel back to the plant for more cycles of power. That would have reduced nuclear fuel costs considerably as new fuel is one of the big ticket items.

 

[qslim]

For what little cursory reading I've done on energy production it seems like nuclear has long been in the crosshairs and forced over decades into obsolescence despite what seems to be an excellent record and a realistic "alternative" to fossil fuels if given the chance.

 

[chino1969]

For what little cursory reading I've done on energy production it seems like nuclear has long been in the crosshairs and forced over decades into obsolescence despite what seems to be an excellent record and a realistic "alternative" to fossil fuels if given the chance.

Nuclear power provides the base load for our electrical grid to satisfy the nation's gluttonous consumption of power while contributing near zero emissions to the environment. The accidents at Fukishima and Chernobyl did little to restore the public's faith in the safety of nuclear power. I am very well informed about the factors involved with those two accidents and don't have time to delve into them right now. I will focus on the accident at TMI in Middletown, PA which changed the U.S. nuclear industry for the better. After TMI every nuke plant had to re-visit their design, emergency procedures, system redundancy, etc. and implement these changes. This has been an ongoing process to this day. I could spend all day talking about this but suffice it to say that in an overall energy plan, nuclear still plays a vital part.

 

[qslim]

Nuclear power provides the base load for our electrical grid to satisfy the nation's gluttonous consumption of power while contributing near zero emissions to the environment. The accidents at Fukishima and Chernobyl did little to restore the public's faith in the safety of nuclear power. I am very well informed about the factors involved with those two accidents and don't have time to delve into them right now. I will focus on the accident at TMI in Middletown, PA which changed the U.S. nuclear industry for the better. After TMI every nuke plant had to re-visit their design, emergency procedures, system redundancy, etc. and implement these changes. This has been an ongoing process to this day. I could spend all day talking about this but suffice it to say that in an overall energy plan, nuclear still plays a vital part.

I wrote a paper in college years back on TMI for some system & design engineering course, I remember it being a fascinating case. What I recall taking away from my research was that at the end of the day the systems at TMI worked as intended to contain the fallout and prevent a real disaster and the rest of the industry used it as a case study to improve safety measures even further.