National Academies Press: OpenBook

Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report (2006)

Chapter: 4 DRY CASK STORAGE AND COMPARATIVE RISKS

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Suggested Citation:"4 DRY CASK STORAGE AND COMPARATIVE RISKS ." National Research Council. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11263.
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4
DRY CASK STORAGE AND COMPARATIVE RISKS

This chapter addresses the second and third charges of the committee’s statement of task:

  • The safety and security advantages, if any, of dry cask storage1 versus wet pool storage at reactor sites.

  • Potential safety and security advantages, if any, of dry cask storage using various single-, dual-, or multi-purpose cask designs.

The second charge calls for a comparative analysis of dry cask storage versus pool storage, whereas the third charge focuses exclusively on dry casks. The committee will address the third charge first to provide the basis for the comparative analysis.

By the late 1970s, the need for alternatives to spent fuel pool storage was becoming obvious to both commercial nuclear power plant operators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The U.S. government made a policy decision at that time not to support commercial reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (see Appendix D). At the same time, efforts to open an underground repository for permanent disposal of commercial spent fuel were proving to be more difficult and time consuming than originally anticipated.2 Commercial nuclear power plant operators had no place to ship their growing inventories of spent fuel and were running out of pool storage space.

Dry cask storage was developed to meet the need for expanded onsite storage of spent fuel at commercial nuclear power plants. The first dry cask storage facility in the United States was opened in 1986 at the Surry Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia. Such facilities are now in operation at 28 operating and decommissioned nuclear power plants. In 2000, the nuclear power industry projected that up to three or four plants per year would run out of needed storage space in their pools without additional interim storage capacity.

This chapter is organized into the following sections:

  • Background on dry cask storage.

  • Evaluation of potential risks of dry cask storage.

  • Potential advantages of dry storage over wet storage.

  • Findings and recommendations.

1  

This storage system is referred to as “dry” because the fuel is stored out of water.

2  

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the Amendments Act of 1987 laid out a process for identifying a site for a geologic repository. That repository was to be opened and operating by the end of January 1998. The federal government now hopes to open a repository at Yucca Mountain, which is located in southwestern Nevada, by the end of 2010,

Suggested Citation:"4 DRY CASK STORAGE AND COMPARATIVE RISKS ." National Research Council. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11263.
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In response to a request from Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Homeland Security sponsored a National Academies study to assess the safety and security risks of spent nuclear fuel stored in cooling pools and dry casks at commercial nuclear power plants. The information provided in this book examines the risks of terrorist attacks using these materials for a radiological dispersal device. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel is an unclassified public summary of a more detailed classified book. The book finds that successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. A propagating fire in a pool could release large amounts of radioactive material, but rearranging spent fuel in the pool during storage and providing emergency water spray systems would reduce the likelihood of a propagating fire even under severe damage conditions. The book suggests that additional studies are needed to better understand these risks. Although dry casks have advantages over cooling pools, pools are necessary at all operating nuclear power plants to store at least the recently discharged fuel. The book explains it would be difficult for terrorists to steal enough spent fuel to construct a significant radiological dispersal device.

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