Dry cask storage

Rod consolidation can permit space saving by dismantling the fuel assembly racks. The rods are still maintained underwater. Rod consolidation is not a routine practice due to issues of heat dissipation and criticality, the possibility of a chain reaction continuing. Dry cask storage is the more common approach for the oldest fuel assemblies and calls for removal of the fuel assemblies from the cooling pool. Designs of the casks vary m detail, but... 

Some utilities are providing long-term on-site dry cask storage others are negotiating with Native American nations for storage on reservations, while others propose shipment of spent fuel to Yucca Mountain for interim, retrievable storage. But these options do not address waste disposal and will not convince an informed public that the waste problem has been solved. 

The radiation shielding of the dry cask storage system must be sufficient to ensure that the radiation dose requirements of 10 CFR 72.104(a) (CFR, Title 10, Part 72) are met at the controlled area boundary during normal and off-normal operations. This dose rate limit is 25 mrem/year to the whole body. 

NUREG-1536, Standard review plan for dry cask storage systems. Revision 1, July 2010. 

Even though nuclear power has demonstrated over the past 30 years its capacity to produce base-load electricity at a low, predictable, and stable cost due to the very low economic dependence of the price of uranium, the management of UNF remains the "Achilles" heel of this energy source because the storage of UNF is increasing as evidenced by the following number with 2,000-23,000 of UNF produced each year by the 104 US nuclear reactor units which equates to a total of 62,000 UNF assemblies stored in dry cask storage and 88,000 stored in pools (Paviet-Hartmann, 2012). The sustainability of the current nuclear fuel cycle is not completely achieved because the current industrial PUREX process does... 

The fuel cycles used for LWRs utilize uranium enriched to between 3% and 5%. In the United States, there is no fuel reprocessing, so by defaulf this implies a once-through fuel cycle. The used fuel is currently stored either in fuel storage pools or dry cask storage at the reactor sites. The recycle of used fuel has been studied since the early days of... 

NUCLEAR SAFETY COMMISSION lAPAN, Safety Guide Dry Cask Storage of Spent Fuel in Nuclear Power Plants, Nuclear Safety Conunission, Tokyo (Aug. 1992). 

It is acknowledged that the conditions described here are those of the fuel rod immediately upon discharge from the reactor. It is possible that the conditions of vacuum drying (up to 400°C) and extended dry cask storage (20°C to 400°C for 20 to 60 years) could change the MP and initial conditions provided in the Material Properties Handbook. 

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