Nuclear Reactor Pool Fire/Huge Risks in U.S. According to Unpublicized NRC Study

[Altair_IV]

17. Whose fault is that?

Last edited Wed Feb 26, 2014, 10:51 AM - Edit history (1)

Since Fukushima it has become clear that storing a lot of spent fuel in those on-site pools can be dangerous. Believe it or not, the NRC never considered that as a factor in whether to license or relicense a plant.

As originally conceived, the spent fuel pools were a temporary storage for spent fuel that was hot enough to require active cooling. The spent fuel pools were *never* envisioned as a long term storage. The concept was that after cooling down, the spent fuel would be taken out of the pools and spirited away to a long term disposal site like Yucca Mountain.

However, who disrupted that plan? The antinuclear movement disrupted the plan. The antinuclear movement has been obstructing the long term storage facility Yucca Mountain for decades, leaving no place to store the fuel but in the pools. The antinuclear movement, like Mothers for Peace, have been against moving the spent fuel to dry casks so they can get the spent fuel pools to fill up; so no more spent fuel can be offloaded from the reactor, so the reactor can't be refueled, and hence has to shut down.

The rank hypocrisy of the antinuclear movement is manifest. They oppose the long term spent fuel storage plans, and then they whine and complain because spent fuel is still in the pools. The antinuclear movement obstructs the construction and licensing of plants causing costly delays, and then they whine and complain about nuclear costing too much.

It's nothing but rank hypocrisy to whine and complain about something that you are the *cause* of.

Altair_IV