Risk from spent nuclear fuel is greater in the US than in Japan, Study says

Todays NYT has an interesting article comparing the risk from spent nuclear fuel in the US vs. Japan. In the case of Fukushima, the explosion at Unit 3 was postulated to be a detonation of the nuclear fuel in the spent fuel pool (not a hydrogen explosion), leading to uncontained volatilized dust of plutonium and other radioactive materials to be sent far and wide. Traces of plutonium from Fukushima was detected here on the West Coast and as far as New England. (You can read more about this from nuclear engineer Gundersen's analysis at www.fairewinds.com/updates). However, the risk from spent nuclear fuel in the US is much greater than in Japan, according to a study by the Institute of Policy Studies. The amount of spent fuel in the single-reactor Vermont Yankee power plant alone, for example, exceeds the inventory in all four of the damaged Fukushima reactors combined.

Read the article excerpt below or click here for the full article.

Risk From Spent Nuclear Reactor Fuel Is Greater in U.S. Than in Japan, Study Says

NYTimes By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: May 24, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/business/energy-environment/25nuke.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

WASHINGTON — The threat of a catastrophic release of radioactive materials from a spent fuel pool at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant is dwarfed by the risk posed by such pools in the United States, which are typically filled with far more radioactive material, according to a study released on Tuesday by a nonprofit institute.

“The largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet will remain in storage at U.S. reactor sites for the indefinite future,” the report’s author, Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote. “In protecting America from nuclear catastrophe, safely securing the spent fuel by eliminating highly radioactive, crowded pools should be a public safety priority of the highest degree.”

Adding to concern, President Obama canceled a plan for a repository at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert last year, making it likely that the spent fuel will accumulate at the nation’s reactors for years to come....