I have blogged before about the ninety six spent nuclear fuel cooling pools at the operating nuclear power reactors in the U.S. These pools are almost full and there is no permanent geological repository in the U.S. available to take the spent fuel assemblies. There is not expected to be a permanent repository until at least 2050. In the meantime, unless the spent fuel rods in the pools are moved, reactors will have to shut down. Spent fuel assemblies can be stored temporarily in dry casks at reactor sites but the nuclear fuel industry is resisting this interim solution because it may cost over four billion dollars. Now a new report claims that U.S. nuclear regulators are ignoring some of the risks that are associated with storing the spent fuel rods in the cooling pools.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has just released a report titled "Lessons learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants" that is critical of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's risk assessment of the spent nuclear fuel pools. A report by the NRC states that if the water in a filled nuclear fuel pool was drained due to accident or terrorism, the resulting fire in the exposed rods would result in a massive release of radioactive material that could contaminate an area larger than the state of New Jersey. If the fire occured in a densely populated area, as many as three and a half million people might have to evacuated. The cost of such a disaster could rise to over seven hundred billion dollars.
In reviewing the NRC risk assessment of spent nuclear fuel pools conducted after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March of 2011, the new report found that the NRC did not include terrorism or internal sabotage in their risk assessment. In their study of Fukushima, the NRC said that because there was no way to estimate the probability of a terrorist attack or internal sabotage on a spent fuel pool, there was no need to include such concerns in their study because they believed that security at nuclear power reactor sites was adequate.
The new NASEM report calls a new federal assessment of the safety and financial risks of a spent fuel fire. It also calls for a new review of the benefits of removing the spent fuel from the cooling pools and storing them in dry casks. The report pointed out that the NRC had promised over a decade ago to carry out an independent study on nuclear industry spent fuel surveillance and security procedures. The NASEM report went on to say that the NRC " did not provide the NASEM committee with a technical analysis to support its assertion that security requirements are being effectively addressed in its regulatory program."
The NRC responded to the NASEM report by saying that "even with the recommendations that the Academies’ board has put together, we continue to conclude that spent fuel is being stored safely and securely in the U.S. Nothing in the report causes immediate concern." A spokesman for the U.S. nuclear industry said that the risks associated with spent fuel pools were "teensy" and suggested that it would not be good use of money to spend more on spent pool fuel security.
The NASEM is highly critical of the position of the NRC and the nuclear industry with respect to the security of spent nuclear fuel in reactor cooling pools and says that the risks are much greater than the NRC and industry estimate. Hopefully, the NASEM report will put pressure on the NRC and nuclear industry to seriously address threats that have been ignored.
