During a June 25th meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, a stream of comments were made by officials from the State of Vermont expressing frustration and impatience with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its decommissioning process. Nuclear power plants each establish a decommissioning trust fund which is used to pay for decommissioning work […]
After spending more than a year offline, the only chemical separation facility operating in the United States is restarting spent fuel dissolution work. At the L Area Complex in the Savannah River Site (SRS), high and low enriched spent nuclear fuel is stored in underwater storage facilities called disassembly basins. In 1998, Savannah River opted […]
Taipower, the state-owned utility in Taiwan is soliciting official bids from overseas to reprocess the spent fuel accumulating at its nuclear power plants. There are three operating nuclear power plants in Taiwan, and a fourth plant in construction which may not be completed. At the end of 40 years of operation, the three operating nuclear […]
Caroline Kennedy, the US Ambassador to Japan, spent three hours visiting the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday as part of her first trip as ambassador to Fukushima Prefecture. While touring the site, Kennedy observed spent fuel removal operations at the Unit 4 reactor, visited the shared control room for the Unit 1 […]
Tokyo Electric, the utility decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, determined that human error is the most likely cause for the alarms which stopped work removing spent fuel assemblies from the Reactor 4 spent fuel pool. TEPCO officials believe that around 9:30 AM on Wednesday, a worker attempted to operate a crane […]
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been forced to halt removal of spent fuel rods from the Reactor 4 spent fuel pool. The pool contains 1,533 fuel rods, 1,331 of which are highly radioactive spent fuel rods. As of Wednesday, 550 fuel rods have been retrieved from the spent fuel pool. Around […]
In the three years since the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster there has been a plethora of drastic changes made to the landscape of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant including; new processing facilities for radioactive water, a farm of storage tanks for contaminated water, new cooling systems, a new carpet of thick […]
All of Japan’s nuclear reactors are offline, but that is not stemming the debate about what to do with the nation’s stockpile of nuclear waste. Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NUMO) is the organization responsible for constructing the disposal facilities for nuclear waste materials. They are working to design, construct, and operate an underground storage facility […]
Members of the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan are encouraging officials of Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited to explain how they have readied the Rokkasho reprocessing facility for disasters and accidents. The Rokkasho Reprocessing plant consists of nearly 40 buildings, including a nuclear waste monitoring facility, a MOX fuel fabrication plant, a uranium enrichment plant, and […]
Estimate time for boil-dry times for a typical spent fuel pool Source: RTM Table D-1 (see figure below) Assumptions: (1) Full core recently discharged (see box in figure) (2) 100 days after shutdown (full core unloaded) (3) constant decay heat at 100 days on (4) Neglect sensible heating from the table (- 10 hr) (5) […]
After more than 20 years of non-action, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing its policies, regulations, guidance, and technical needs in several key areas, such as: retrievability, cladding integrity, and safe handling of spent fuel; criticality safety features and requirements for spent fuel transportation; and aging management and qualification of dual-purpose canisters and […]
Male Participant: You know, we do believe that based on information from TEPCO and identification of neutron sources, you know, found at the one mile from the plant that some fuel may have been injected, from that spent fuel pool when the hydrogen, when they had the hydrogen explosion. Pages from ML13008A113 – March 24th, […]
An investigation by Chubu into the status of spent fuel stored in the spent fuel pool from the Unit 1 reactor of the Hamaoka nuclear power plant found cracks and other deformations among the fuel rods. The Unit 1 reactor is currently undergoing decommissioning work and the spent fuel was transferred to the Unit 5 […]
Japanese reports show that government officials are being lobbied to begin reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from Korea, Vietnam, and other Asian countries, as it would “strengthen” Japan’s diplomacy, security and the country’s economy as well as “contribute to the peaceful use of atomic energy.” A report generated by an advisory council to the DPJ party […]
TEPCO plans to start removing spent fuel from the Unit 4 reactor building starting in November of this year, and has already started bringing in cranes and heavy equipment for the removal work. With over 1,500 spent fuel assemblies resting in a building visibly decimated by the hydrogen explosion, more spent fuel is stored at […]
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority is not just worried about the safety of the nuclear reactors at the Tsuruga and Higashidori nuclear power plants, they also have raised concerns about the combined 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel which is stored at the two facilities which have been decided have active earthquake faults running underneath them. […]
After a Level 1 incident was announced upon the disclosure of two deformed fuel rods which were stick together at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, TEPCO investigated 65 spent fuel assemblies at the Unit 5 spent fuel pool and discovered that 18 of the 65 assemblies were found to be bent. Of the 65 rods, […]
The Garona nuclear power plant is shutting down in order to avoid new taxes that would render the plant unprofitable. Spain is introducing higher taxes on electricity generation as a measure to address an over 24 billion euro ($31 billion) energy tariff deficit after years of selling power below costs. The operator of the plant […]
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority has asked nuclear waste contractors at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant to review their security requirements after cracks were found in the pools where nuclear waste is stored on site. The nuclear plant at Oskarshamn is one of three active nuclear power stations in Sweden, and is also the home of CLAB […]
Savannah River scientists have confirmed that a material resembling a cobweb which was found to be growing on spent nuclear fuel in the L Basin, is actually a form of bacteria with DNA strains currently unknown. “We did a genetic analysis and found a diverse population of mostly bacteria,” said Christopher Berry, the senior technical […]