“I too am concerned about replacing Indian point, but I”™m also concerned about safety issues,” a reader emailed the other day in response to an editorial in which the Business Journal noted potential power and economic implications of closing Indian Point.
“The spent fuel rods issues in Japan are frightening ”¦ The seismic issues are a lot less troublesome.”
He was referring to used fuel stored at the Buchanan facility, which has come under scrutiny following the earthquake, tsunami and resultant nuclear nightmare in Japan.
The folks over at Indian Point must be feeling a bit spent themselves these days. The plant has come under fire in the past, but the pressure is mounting as the crisis in Japan unfolds.
Indian Point officials insist the plant is safe and the spent fuel rods are securely stored. Several years back the facility did experience a small leak in one of the pools housing spent fuel but the water eventually dried up.
In recent weeks, lawmakers and industry experts have discussed the plant”™s vulnerability to earthquakes and other natural disasters. Whether or not the plant is susceptible, we don”™t know. Accidents do happen.
What we do know is that of all the issues surrounding Indian Point and other nuclear facilities, one that can be readily dealt with is the spent fuel. This is a present danger that should be addressed.
What are we dealing with? The Business Journal asked Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi to brief us.
Basically, each unit at Indian Point ”“ numbers 2 and 3 ”“ has one pool, which is roughly 30-feet in perimeter and 40-feet deep. Each pool holds 1,300 spent rods and is “mostly” below grade.
“They”™re mostly below the ground,” Nappi said. “And I point that out to help you understand that they”™re protected almost entirely by earth. The walls are steel-reinforced concrete and the bottom is set on bedrock. The pool walls are 6-feet 3-inches thick all around and inside the pool there”™s a quarter-inch stainless steel liner.”
In Japan, one of the issues is that water is leaking out of the pool. “If you look at the Japanese pools it”™s a different design,” Nappi said. “The pools are actually elevated, the bottom of the pool is off the floor. You can in essence walk beneath it. Our pools are set on bedrock.”
Indian Point also stores used fuel in dry casks. This is a supplement to the pools, however, not an alternative.
“When the industry came about, the original plan was for the federal government to come in and take the used fuel off the hands of all the utilities,” Nappi said. “That never came to fruition. So the utilities responsibly engineered their own storage for the used fuel because (it) would fill up the pools. So they invented dry-cask storage.”
After about five years, he explained, used fuel is cool enough so that it doesn”™t need to be in water any longer. The fuel is removed from the pool and stored in dry casks ”“ 20-foot high containers that weigh some 360,000 pounds. “We put fuel in there and fill it with high-density concrete. We have them stored on site on a seismically engineered pad.”
Best intentions notwithstanding, accidents do occur. Why not get these rods out of densely populated areas?
That was the plan with Yucca Mountain in Nevada ”“ to create a repository for the disposal of nuclear fuel. Ratepayers and utilities have contributed some $18 billion toward the effort. And, while the government has spent upwards of $10 billion on studies and construction to develop the site, President Obama has pulled the plug on the project.
Nevada is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid”™s stomping ground, after all.
Lawsuits will be filed by utilities. In the meantime, spent fuel sits idly nearby.
“The government has not taken that fuel and yet we”™ve had to expend, at Indian Point for example, $100 million to store (it),” Nappi said.
There”™s little doubt Entergy and its colleagues would be happy to see the rods go.
“I can only surmise that the utilities would prefer to move back to the original agreement that the government ”¦ would take the fuel off of their hands,” Nappi said.
“Whether it”™s Yucca Mountain as a repository or whether the nation moves to recycling of used fuel like other countries, until that time we”™re obligated to safely store the used fuel here.”
It”™s unlikely Indian Point will be closed ”“ any time soon, anyway ”“ barring any catastrophes. Even if it were shuttered, the spent fuel would remain.
A more practical approach is to deal with the storage of used fuel.
That would be time well spent.
Harry Reid lobbyed for and received billions of dollars in funds for Yucca Mountain. But when it was time to implement the plan he said “not in my state”. To me that is considered fraud and breach of contract in the real world. But once again Congress is exempt from all laws affecting the common man.