POWER February 2015 - 48

NUCLEAR FUEL LIFECYCLE
horizontal transfer processes, and a " massive
concrete module " for housing (which provides
additional radiation shielding).
The company says that additional design
improvements of the EOS system include increased
heat rejection, increased thickness of
basket conductors for improved emissivity,
the ability to store damaged fuel assemblies
(which saves the cost of " canning " ), options for
an inspection port built into the EOS concrete
module for ease and effectiveness of long-term
aging management, and a corrosion-proof option
for use in marine environments. AREVA
says this new model is the highest seismically
qualified dry fuel storage system in the world.
The horizontal, above-ground storage configuration
makes the canisters easy to access and
monitor long-term and less costly to maintain
than underground systems, it says.
Is one dry cask design inherently better than
another? As with most technologies-especially
new ones and new models-only time and
site-specific operating experience will tell. The
NRC doesn't weigh in on that question. Conley
noted that, " All systems that we have approved
meet our regulations for protecting public
health and safety and the environment. We do
not recommend one over another. "
Although previous generations of dry
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casks have not been without problems (including
weld-related issues and two instances
of water seeping into casks that were
noted in 2013, which didn't affect the SNF),
the NRC's August decision signals its overall
confidence in the technology as well as in its
oversight of the facilities. In fact, the NRC
recently approved a 40-year license renewal
for Exelon Generation's dry cask independent
spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI)
at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in
Lusby, Md., the fifth such extension. ISFSI
licenses contain conditions requiring periodic
inspections of the casks and their components
to ensure potential aging effects are
identified and managed.
Public Acceptance of Dry Storage
Lags
There are 71 independent spent fuel storage
facilities in the U.S., but that doesn't mean
that new ones are easily accepted. Last fall,
neighbors of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station
in Plymouth, Mass., appealed a Zoning
Board decision that Entergy, which owns the
plant, did not need a special permit to begin
construction of a dry cask storage facility.
And on the other coast, there has been opposition
to onsite storage of fuel from the shuttered
SONGS plant.
Entergy's Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power
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Station, which went permanently offline at
the end of December, will also use dry cask
storage for its SNF after initial cooling in
the facility's spent fuel pools. After cooling
in the spent fuel pool for seven years, the
3,880 SNF assemblies are to be stored in
58 dry casks located at two ISFSIs on plant
property, although the second pad has not yet
been built. Vermont Yankee was frequently
a target of opposition during its 42-year operating
life, and opponents to onsite storage
continue to use legal challenges to the NRC's
environmental analysis that found onsite
storage safe.
The October GAO report found that the
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The Lubrizol Corporation is a Berkshire Hathaway company.
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CIRCLE 13 ON READER SERVICE CARD
48
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POWER | February 2015
DOE, which is legally responsible for interim
and long-term SNF storage (which would be
some type of dry storage), should implement
a " coordinated outreach strategy " to better
inform the public about federal SNF issues
in order to successfully develop consolidated
interim storage sites. " Without a better understanding
of spent nuclear fuel management
issues, the public may be unlikely to
support any policy decisions about managing
spent nuclear fuel, " the report said. ■
-Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER's editor.
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POWER February 2015

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