Spent nuclear fuel being moved in NY

Spent nuclear fuel being moved in NY

	Published : Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:20 By : Agencies Print this Story

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) - Workers at the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant began removing highly radioactive spent fuel from a 40-foot-deep pool Monday for transfer to giant dry casks, where the fuel will be kept until the nation comes up with a long-term nuclear waste solution.

Moving the spent fuel rods gives the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear, room for future waste so it can keep the reactor going. Entergy has applied for new licenses that would allow Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 to keep running until the 2030s on their site in Buchanan.

'The move to dry cask storage is an important step toward preparing Indian Point for continued safe operation,' said Entergy's vice president at the site, Joe Pollock. The new licenses are being challenged by Gov. Eliot Spitzer, other elected officials and some environmental groups.

The spent-fuel rods, highly radioactive but no longer able to power the reactor, have been stored vertically in racks at the bottom of the pool in a building near the reactor. The water blocks their radiation. Indian Point 3 and the inactive Indian Point 1 have their own waste pools.

The dry cask storage procedure, increasingly common among the nation's nuclear plants, began Monday morning when a 110-crane lifted one fuel assembly from its rack and pulled it -- still underwater -- into a canister that had been placed in another part of the pool, said Entergy spokeswoman Robyn Bentley. Divers were not needed. Workers on the crane and around the pool wore full-body protective suits, she said, plus special shoes and safety glasses.

Thirty-two fuel rods will be loaded into the canister, which will then be capped, allowed to dry and then welded shut. The canister will then be placed into the 20-foot-tall dry cask, which has 2-foot-thick concrete walls and is helium-filled.

The cask, weighing 180 tons when fully loaded, will then be slowly hauled on a transporter with tank-like treads to a newly built concrete pad within the Indian Point installation. That could start within several days, Bentley said.

Three casks will be loaded at the Indian Point 2 pool, then five will be filled at Indian Point 1. The pool there is expected to be drained because it's believed to be leaking radioactive water into the round.

Entergy expects the casks to stay on the platform until the government settles on a central storage point. Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been proposed as a nuclear dump site but approvals are still pending and it couldn't open before 2018, officials say.