Dry Cask Storage News Today

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Trying to protect? science fiction is what we were playing out at vast expense at yucca mountain. the kind of experiments they were doing in that mountain -- its not a mountain, just a ridge -- certainly didnt persuade anybody. for political reasons, nyucca mountain was not opened and will probably never be opened. then i started to look at, well, what actually is the amount of hazard that comes from nuclear waste. the first thing i found out is what people who are actually doing with the nuclea...

Generation for the future and taking really a 30 to 40-year view of that. >> all right. lets talk about a mechanism. is it important that we need to develop a mechanism here in the united states for reprocessing nuclear waste or a long-term storage solution? where are we with that discussion? >> i think one of the issues is how do we deal, as youve suggested, with our spent fuel? today its in the pools. weve been moving it into the dry cask storage. i think we should probably accelerate the move...

So the smart way, the sustainable way -- >> right. >> -- to deal with this is to recycle. >> where are we in the technology or the science required to get more than 5% out of a fuel rod? >> i think in france, theyve used a technology thats been very successful over the last 40 years. i believe we can improve on that technology and deploy it in the united states. and i think that is one of our challenges. and as we move the spent fuel into the dry cask storage, that buys us time to develop this t...

So the smart way, the sustainable way -- >> right. >> -- to deal with this is to recycle. >> where are we in the technology or the science required to get more than 5% out of a fuel rod? >> i think in france, theyve used a technology thats been very successful over the last 40 years. i believe we can improve on that technology and deploy it in the united states. and i think that is one of our challenges. and as we move the spent fuel into the dry cask storage, that buys us time to develop this t...

Concerns. in 2008, president obama, candidate obama campaigned against yucca mountain and so we have not resolved where to bury this stuff. >> right. >> in the united states. >> we havent. its one of the great unsolved problems of nuclear power. what do you do with the waste? and its backing up in reactors all over the country. for example, at fukushima, we estimate there are about 260 tons of uranium in the fuel rods in the reactors. but theres almost 2,000 tons in the spent fuel ponds, the rea...

Even though obama administration has given the go ahead and loan guarantees to build the first nuclear plants in decades this week it formally ended the governments storage of waste in yucca mountain. that means that radioactive material will pile up at dozens of existing plants across the country. brian todd is getting a firsthand look at what is going on. brian? >> wolf, im standing in the middle of 200 tons of nuclear waste, spent fuel that is stored in the dry casks. officials here say it is...

So that makes the security thing less well flown. >> reporter: he says that they have transportded spent nuclear fuel for decades and says that a permanent depository is an environmental must. >> it is the radioactive materials in the casks that require isolation from the environment in a long time, and geological depository serves that purpose. >> reporter: he says his facility can store this waste for years, but he has other concerns as the administration goes back to square one for a solution...

>> our pools are full, and we have to put fuel out into dry cask storage, and it doesnt make any sense. >> reporter: adam levin is the director of spent fuel and decommissioning at this plant which powers 1 million customers. he and his colleagues are disappointed that the obama administration has cut off the project to build a site underneath yucca mountain, nevada, to permanently store nuclear waste. to show what they are up against, plant officials give us access. after several security scree...