Uranium Pellets News Today

Reported this story, it was easy for nevada senator harry reid to tell us nuclear waste was safer right where it was. >> leave it on site, where it is. you dont have to worry about transporting it. it saves the country billions and billions of dollars. >> but japans crisis has democrats wondering if the effort to keep nuclear waste out of his state is really safer? >> i truly believe we must rethink how we manage spent fuel. >> if this was a rail fuel assembly, it would be 13 feet long and weigh...

Expand, eventually to rupture, and first to release the gas thats already accumulated within spent fuel, and then as the uranium pellets in the fuel continue to heat up, more and more radioactive material will be squeezed out of the pellets, mostly in the form of cesium 137, which would be a gas at those temperatures. so if the fuel pool has gone dry, that would be a very hard condition to reverse. >> is there at that point a risk of explosion and do either of those matter at that point? >> well...

This would cause fuel rods to expand, eventually to rupture, and first to release the gas thats already accumulated within spent fuel, and then as the uranium pellets in the fuel continue to heat up, more and more radioactive material will be squeezed out of the pellets, mostly in the form of cesium 137, which would be a gas at those temperatures. so if the fuel pool has gone dry, that would be a very hard condition to reverse. >> is there at that point a risk or either of those matter at that p...

United states. >> so reactor facing similar crisis in the united states, evacuation zone would be default ten miles? >> thats right. >> in reactor four what the nrc said in testimony, all the water in number four reactor fuel pool is gone. if thats happened, if those fuel rods are in a dry pool, what happens to them? what happens there? >> i would like to caution, theres some dispute over whether thats true. but just assuming it is, if the spent fuel is completely dry, then heat transfer is sign...

Thanks for being here. >> tell me what i got wrong in the explanation. >> the one thing i guess i would differ on is probably it wouldnt go all the way to meltdown in the pool, but it doesnt matter because long before that the volatile radioactivity would have been driven off by the heat. you dont need to go to meltdown to release the radioactivity we are concerned for the environment. >> just the damage to the fuel rods that could happen just by them being exposed to the air is enough to releas...

A large spike in radio activity after the fire in number 4. what that means is the force of that explosion or smoke from the fire or both carried aloft radioactive particles being released by the damaged spent fuel rods. uranium pellets in the big now probably damaged metal tubes. this is not a nuclear explosion. there are not nuclear chain reactions going on here, but this is a means by which radioactivity is being released into the atmosphere, and the question is whether or not those fuel rods...

Controlled reaction. instead of blowing up, the reaction creates heat. and the heat is what we are after because thats what these reactors use to make a lot of electricity. to make that nuclear reaction that makes that heat, those uranium pellets are the fuel. and just like any fuel, it gets used up eventually. your 12 foot long fuel rod, that lasts about six years in a reactor. with a reactor in effect turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes som...

Guess i would differ on is probably it wouldnt go all the way to a meltdown in the pool. but it doesnt matter because the -- long before that, the volatile radioactivity would have been driven off by the heat. you dont need to go to a meltdown to release the radioactivity that we are concerned for the environment. >> so just the damage to the fuel rods which could happen just by them being exposed to the air is enough to release radioactivity, that is the worst case. >> the cladding around the u...

>> tell me what i got wrong in the explanation. >> the one thing i guess i would differ on is probably it wouldnt go all the way to meltdown in the pool, but it doesnt matter because long before that the volatile radioactivity would have been driven off by the heat. you dont need to go to meltdown to release the radioactivity we are concerned for the environment. >> just the damage to the fuel rods that could happen just by them being exposed to the air is enough to release radioactivity, that i...

Piece of it. what ann is setting up here, what shes talking about, shes setting up a discussion about the politics of nuclear power in the united states. but what i want you to focus on is what she is showing as she is setting this up. watch. >> this is a rare look at an assembly line of what some see as americas energy future, the components of nuclear power. tiny uranium pellets fill 12-foot-long rods. bundled together, they become assemblies. inside reactors, the assemblys active engine, crea...