Fukushima warning: US has 'utterly failed' to address risk of spent nuclear fuel

[Better Believe It]

Fukushima warning: US has 'utterly failed' to address risk of spent fuel
By Mark Clayton
March 30, 2011

The travails of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan are highlighting a key question for the US: Why are America's nuclear power plants allowed to store tons of used but still highly radioactive fuel in pools for as many as 100 years – despite the fact that those pools are far more vulnerable to terrorist attack than the reactors themselves?

In Japan, a relatively small amount of used-up fuel was sitting in Fukushima's seven spent-fuel pools when disaster occurred. Yet after just days without a cooling system, most water in at least one pool had apparently boiled away, a fire was reported, and radiation levels soared.

By contrast, nuclear utilities in the US have over decades accumulated some 71,862 tons of spent fuel in more than 30 states – the vast majority of it sitting today in pools that are mostly full, according to a recent state-by-state tally by the Associated Press. It's a huge quantity of highly radioactive material equal to a great many Chernobyls' worth of radioactivity, nuclear experts say.

The reason is the lack of a national repository for spent fuel – meaning it must be stored on site – as well as the lack of a coherent nationwide policy, experts told Congress Wednesday.

Read the full article at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110330/ts_csm/373490;_ylt=AmISNGUdezK8KnPE.qBr0RFpl88F;_ylu=X3oDMTJla3ZxdjFlBGFzc2V0A2NzbS8yMDExMDMzMC8zNzM0OTAEcG9zAzI4BHNlYwN5bl9wYWdpbmF0ZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA2Z1a3VzaGltYXdhcg--

[ClarkUSA]

1. You'll be thrilled that a top GOP billionaire donor wants to change all that -->

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x284330

[Buzz Clik]

2. This subject has been beaten to death on DU, but I guess another round is in order:

"Why are America's nuclear power plants allowed to store tons of used but still highly radioactive fuel in pools for as many as 100 years – despite the fact that those pools are far more vulnerable to terrorist attack than the reactors themselves?"

It is an excellent question, but it is phrased poorly: Why have Americans been so militant in their opposition to allowing high level radioactive waste to be stored in a proper facility?

[MadHound]

3. Perhaps because such a proper facility hasn't been found.

Yucca Mt., lying at the intersection of three fault zones, subjected to regular flooding, and dangerously close to Las Vegas groundwater, was a joke of a suggestion, one that took twenty years to deliver the punchline.

Other solutions that the US has undertaken were equally as laughable, and dangerous.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is no good way of storing spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste, none. That is one of the major problems with nuclear power, no solution to the problem of waste. Yet we continue to produce more and more every single day. Absolute idiocy.

[Buzz Clik]

6. And that's why there is no permanent storage for high level rad waste.

Why do we need so many threads to "discuss" this?

[enough]

9. Because it is imperative to find a solution other than storing the spent fuel rods in elevated pools

directly above the reactors. Storage away from the reactors must be undertaken, even if it is another form of storage right at the plant site. We should not be waiting to find permanent storage (which will never be found) to deal with the issue of rods stored in elevated pools above the reactors.

You seem to think that the fact that it has been discussed has somehow dealt with the problem in front of us.

[Buzz Clik]

12. That solution has been found. It's the blind, terrified fools that block it.

It is truly ridiculous.

[RC]

17. Beat me to it.

It is the Anti-Nukers that fight tooth and nail against everything having to do with nuclear power.
Maybe if they would help with solutions instead of being modern day Luddites, there would not be nearly as much of a problem. Fools!

[Buzz Clik]

18. +1 Even if we were to ban everything nuclear right now, we would still be faced with waste disposal.

That waste exists right now and is a hazard right now. Blocking every attempt to secure it is incredibly self defeating.

[MadHound]

10. Same reason we have so many threads discussing breast feeding, pit bulls and Olive Garden,

This is, after all, a discussion board. People tend to come back around to the same subjects time and again. It is human nature.

If you can't stand such a thread, why click on it, why post on it?

[Buzz Clik]

13. I love these threads! Why wouldn't I click?

Don't be so sensitive.

[hayu_lol]

5. Most of the fuel in those rods are in the cooling pools...

for a reason. Much of that material is able to be processed, the most dangerous elements removed(toxic to fuel use)and the fuel reused. Reprocessing is what the wait is for.

Heard an intelligent interview on KGO San Francisco about a week ago where a nuclear scientist/engineer discussed Thorium reactors. We have enough Thorium to provide power for roughly 1000 years and thorium is much less dangerous to use than is uranium. A further plus of thorium is that it is frequently found with deposits of the 'rare earths' that we presently import from China.

Research into thorium reactors was put on back burners many years ago because some were more interested in the production of bomb grade plutonium. Make of that what you will. Thorium might be the wonder fuel of the immediate future. Still dangerous, but design and use is far safer than the 'old' plants we are now using.

Time to do some reading on Thorium and its use in reactors for generation of electricity.

[Buzz Clik]

7. Some yes, some no.

There are fuel rods in the Hanford area that have been there for more than 50 years.

The abject fear of all things nuclear in this country has paralyzed us.

[Better Believe It]

8. What kind of "proper facility" and location did you have in mind?

[Buzz Clik]

14. Oh, I don't know. Maybe a huge underground, earthquake proof, water tight bunker...

... that has been studied thoroughly for 25 years and has been mostly constructed but cannot be used because terrified people who know less than they think they do have blocked its use.

Something like that.

[brendan120678]

4. Hmmm...if only we had...

a centralized, secure waste storage facility somewhere. I wonder why no one has ever though about building one anywhere?

[w4rma]

11. Or why the one they decided on was an awful choice. (nt)

[Buzz Clik]

16. Yes, indeed, especially compared to the other excellent choices:

a)
b)
c)

[Buzz Clik]

15. Hmmm.... if only...

[Better Believe It]

19. Not in my backyard!