Used Nuclear Fuel Is Stored Safely and Securely at Well-Protected Nuclear Power Plants, According to Study
Apr 06 - PRNewswire
An unclassified version of the National Academy of Sciences study on the safety and security of used nuclear fuel at U.S. nuclear power plants was made public today. The following comments on the study are from the Nuclear Energy Institute's chief nuclear officer, Marvin Fertel:
"To the extent that the study's worst-case scenarios lead the NAS to
suggest that some nuclear power plants might take even more steps to reduce even
further the low probability that an attack on used fuel storage facilities could
cause a substantial release of radiation, I offer five observations:
1) The NAS report does not recommend unloading of used fuel from storage
pools into dry storage containers.
2) As directed by the NRC, nuclear power plants are assessing the
potential to effectively augment already-redundant safety systems to
ensure cooling of used fuel assemblies in the fuel pools. This is
consistent with the NAS recommendations and is above and beyond the
first series of protective measures that the NRC ordered in 2002.
3) The NRC's response to NAS states clearly that, even after conducting
additional risk analyses, it 'considers the likelihood of a zirconium
fire capable of causing large releases of radiation to the environment
to be extremely low.'
4) Computer modeling on aircraft impacts conducted by EPRI in 2002
confirmed the strength of used fuel storage facilities, and the worst-
case scenario approach taken by the NAS on events with very low
probability does not lend itself to informed decision-making by
policymakers. State-of-the-art computer modeling techniques applied in
the EPRI aircraft study determined that typical nuclear plant
containment structures, used fuel storage pools, fuel storage
containers, and used fuel transportation containers at U.S. nuclear
power plants would withstand these impact forces despite some concrete
crushing and bent steel.
5) The nation needs to appreciate that the best way to protect the
nation's entire critical infrastructure, which includes nuclear
facilities, is to place a high priority on prevention of airliner
attacks by terrorist organizations. It is far more effective, and less
costly to the nation, to prevent attacks rather than try to protect
the entire critical infrastructure. As a nation, we have taken several
steps to do so, including screening passengers, deploying air
marshals, hardening cockpit doors and increasing passenger awareness."
The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's policy
organization. This news release and additional information about nuclear energy
are available on NEI's Internet site at http://www.nei.org/
.
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