Diablo Canyon Nuclear in Light of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant Spent/Used Fuel Storage

Used Fuel Storage

Approximately 2,600 used fuel assemblies are stored on site

Spent Fuel Pool

•Reinforced concrete structure
•Stainless steel plate liner
•Minimum of 23 ft of borated water over used fuel assemblies
•Emergency replacement water capability; including reservoir and water tanks
•Pool floor elevation approximately 15 ft below grade
•Dry Cask Storage
•Used fuel assemblies are stored in stainless steel Multi-Purpose Canister (MPC)
•MPC/fuel assemblies passively air cooled within a 20 ft tall concrete overpack, concrete overpack is approximately two feet thick

Fukushima Daiichi Sequence of Events

•Large earthquake caused automatic reactor shutdown and loss of offsite power
•Emergency diesel generators and other safety systems actuated
•Large tsunami wave (~1 hour later) disabled nearly all plant electrical and safety systems
•Remaining systems provided adequate core cooling for several hours, eventually became exhausted leading to core becoming uncovered and containment over pressurization
•Additionally, spent fuel pools heated up

Related articles

• March 15th, 2011 – Fukushima Daiichi Timelines from TEPCO and NISA press releases (enformable.com)
• March 14th, 2011 – OpE Nuclear Power Plant Design for Natural Phenomena (enformable.com)
• NHK: Fears that walls of Fukushima spent fuel pools will erode – Tepco working to keep salt from causing holes (VIDEO) (enenews.com)
• TEPCO Begins Use of Robots to Assist Clearing 3500 Cubic Meters of Building Rubble from Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3 and 4 (enformable.com)
• TEPCO Releases new video on-site at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (enformable.com)
• TEPCO Official – Pressure and Temperatures inside of Reactor 1 at Fukushima Daiichi exceeded Design Basis (enformable.com)
• Impact of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster on Nuclear Industry in the United States (enformable.com)
• All 6 Fukushima Daiichi Reactors and Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant’s likely to be decomissioned (enformable.com)
• Co-chair of Russia’s Ecodefence and others “still fear criticality” at Fukushima – “I don’t think there is a reason to say situation has improved much actually” (enenews.com)
• March 15th, 2011 – Core Exposed at #2 Fukushima Daiichi (enformable.com)
• NRC “Talking Points” – Current as of March 17, 2011, 0600 EDT (enformable.com)
• Status of Fukushima Daiichi (as of September 20) – Temp Worker knocks filter off mask – no internal contamination found (enformable.com)