DOE to invest $15.8M in nuclear fuel storage research
16 April 2013
As part of its commitment to developing an effective strategy for the safe and secure storage and management of used nuclear fuel, the US Department of Energy (DOE) today announced a new dry storage research and development project led by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The project will design and demonstrate dry storage cask technology for high burn-up spent nuclear fuels that have been removed from commercial nuclear power plants.
The Energy Department is committed to advancing clean, reliable and safe nuclear power—which provides the largest source of low-carbon electricity in the United States. At the same time, the Department is working to address the challenges of the back end of the fuel cycle, including advancing secure and reliable extended storage and dry cask technologies.
—Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Pete Lyons
In the nuclear energy industry, burn-up relates to the power extracted from reactor fuels. Over the last few years, many improvements have been made in fuel technologies which have allowed plant operators to achieve higher burn-up levels, almost doubling the amount of energy captured.
The Energy Department has studied the current long-term dry cask systems used to store spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors, and has identified areas for continued research and data collection related to the storage of high burn-up spent fuel. The research project led by EPRI will focus on studying these issues. The Department will invest $15.8 million over five years, with private industry contributing at least 20% of the total project cost.
This work builds on the steps the Department is taking in FY 2013, and has proposed for FY 2014, to support a new strategy for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
In the Energy Department’s budget request presented last week, the Department requested $60 million for nuclear waste research and development that aligns with the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future and supports to the Administration’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. The request includes funds to lay the groundwork for the design of an integrated waste management system as well as related research and development on storage, transportation and materials issues.
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$12.2 billion wasted tax dollars at Hanford wasn't enough?
With average 207% reactor construction overruns for decades, private nuclear has plenty of $billions to research the waste/storage problems freezing their new construction permits.
Posted by: kelly | 16 April 2013 at 03:04 PM
You might want to develop some new schtick; that one-note complaint of yours is getting awfully monotonous.
Most of those overruns were in the early 1980's under a completely different legal regime, but don't let facts disturb your comfortable dogma.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 16 April 2013 at 07:58 PM
“$12.2 billion wasted tax dollars at Hanford wasn't enough? ”
Wasted how?
The waste at Hanford was a result of trying to produce plutonium for weapons faster than the USSR. We failed to do that but were able to put nukes on more accurate missiles on subs the soviet navy could not find. We maintained the ability to wage unthinkable for a sane person.
So the waste is there. The lowest cost choice is let the tanks rust away. The sand will keep the waste from going too far. Put a big fence around the place.
Hanford sits on think layers of basalt. The nets lowest cost drilling a big hole and dropping down into the basalt. That would take only a few millions.
It is people like kelly who reject practical solutions and demand expensive one. Then they say it is too expensive.
Tax dollars how?
Commercial nuke plants have paid billions to DOE. The courts have told NRC that they must examine the environmental impact of DOE not keeping their end the bargain. This study will support what we already know. The environmental impact of dry cask storage for 300 years is insignificant.
Posted by: Kit P | 17 April 2013 at 06:24 AM
Since there's only 104 US nuke plants, 75 with 208% cost overrun averages is definitive.
So is objection to "..private nuclear has plenty of $billions to research the waste/storage problems freezing their new construction permits."
American taxpayers need nuclear off their backs:
Defense: Killing all life on earth ONCE is deterrence, maybe twice for 'kicks', but the "many times over" (being dismantled to be replaced)is pure defense/nuclear industry corruption.
Power: It's NOT economical. Even supertankers would be nuclear powered if it were economical. The radioactive waste problem couldn't be solved.
The, even remote, possibility of more Chernobyl's is unacceptable risk and un-insurable madness.
"“$12.2 billion wasted tax dollars at Hanford wasn't enough? ”
Wasted how?"
To even ask this question is radiation damage.
That money could fed 12.2 million people with $1,000 of food/grain/bread each, perhaps a lifetime of food with interest/reseeding - AND HAVE CLEANED/SECURED JUST AS MUCH NUCLEAR WASTE.
Posted by: kelly | 17 April 2013 at 08:22 AM
If those plants were all in construction during the era of rampant legal interference, NRC-mandated changes and interest rates over 15%/yr, the results cannot be extrapolated outside of those conditions.
American taxpayers aren't paying for it. Even Con Edison's customers are enjoying a lot of inexpensive nuclear power now that the construction bonds are paid off.
Now you're just being melodramatic. Or hysterical. It's hard to tell at this distance.
The NS Savannah was not designed to be economical, but it would have been economically superior to conventional ships immediately after the 1973 oil price shock. The problem is that nuclear has been saddled with regulatory costs that no other energy supply has to bear; few are justified, and even fewer are re-examined and changed or dropped if they fail to yield results commensurate with the price tag.
Every time engineering comes up with a solution, politicians say "you can't do that!" CF: Yucca mountain.
The radiotoxicity of fission products falls below that of the original ore in about 500 years. The problem with plutonium, americium, curium etc. is easily solved: don't throw them away, use them as FBR fuel.
The Soviet Union is gone; nobody will ever build another RMBK. Even Chernobyl had a very limited impact. Compared to China's annual death toll from coal, another Chernobyl meltdown every year would be preferable.
When you are afraid of questions, you have proven yourself intellectually bankrupt. Your mouth has written checks that your intellect can't cash.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 20 April 2013 at 09:33 PM