POWER May 2010 - 40

NUCLEAR POWER
issuance and can be renewed in additional
20-year increments.
The first U.S. commercial ISFSI was licensed
by the NRC in 1986 at the Surry
Nuclear Plant in Virginia. Since then, dry
cask storage has become common among
licensees needing additional SNF storage
capacity. According to the NRC, SNF is
currently in dry storage at 40 general license
ISFSIs and 15 site-specific license
ISFSIs. For example, Southern Nuclear's
Hatch and Farley nuclear plants safely
store spent fuel in above-ground dry storage
casks (Figure 9).
Southern Nuclear is the operator of the
Vogtle nuclear plant (see " Plant Vogtle
Leads the Next Nuclear Generation, " POWER,
November 2009). At Vogtle, all all of
the used fuel for both units is stored safely
under water in two storage pools located in
the protected area of the plant. There is still
storage capacity available in the existing
pools to last for years. Therefore, by combing
the existing capability of the storage
pools and dry-storage facilities when the
spent fuel pool does reach capacity, all of
Southern Nuclear's sites have the capability
to safely store spent fuel on-site for the duration
of each plant's operating license.
Hard Lesson Learned
It remains unclear if a logical and politically
acceptable path toward developing a national,
long-term storage facility for SNF and
HLW is possible. It is our opinion that there
is not. The DOE and its predecessor agency
has tried and failed multiple times, over several
decades. State veto power over siting a
storage facility makes approval of a facility
essentially a national referendum on nuclear
power, given that a veto must be overridden
by the Senate and the House. Also, the extremely
long period of time required to develop
any storage facility would certainly span
presidential administrations of both political
parties, making any project like Yucca Mountain
susceptible to closure when the political
winds change. Why would we expect a different
result at a new site a decade hence?
History can be a stern teacher, and we
should learn this important lesson. There
is no long-term, politically expedient
road to a Yucca Mountain-type facility
anywhere in the U.S. We expect the blue
ribbon commission to spend the next two
years or more studying the problem only
to come to the same conclusion.
As a nation, we would be better served
if Congress would amend the NWPA and
9. Workable solution. Southern Nuclear's
dry-cask storage system at Hatch Nuclear
Plant. Courtesy: Southern Nuclear
NWPAA to delete the statutory responsibility
of the DOE to store SNF, refund the
NWF contributions, and quickly settle the
60-plus lawsuits pending to cover all current
and future nuclear plant SNF storage
costs. The elegant solution is nuclear fuel
reprocessing, perhaps primed by reprogramming
NWF money into building such
a facility. But we'll hold that discussion for
another day. ■
-James M. Hylko (jhylko1@msn.com) is
a POWER contributing editor. Dr. Robert
Peltier, PE is editor-in-chief.
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