New
York Times: As the American nuclear industry faces new
scrutiny following the incident at Japan’s Fukushima
Daiichi plant, options for safely storing spent nuclear fuel
are being reexamined, writes Matthew Wald for the
New York Times. Currently, spent fuel is first stored
in onsite pools to cool it. It’s then transferred to dry
casks when the pools reach capacity. The nuclear calamity in
Japan has refocused attention on the vulnerability of
America’s spent fuel pools, which are generally more
packed than the damaged ones at Fukushima. Some scientists and
several members of Congress are calling for the fuel to be
moved from the pools into dry casks more quickly; the casks are
thought to be safer in the event of an earthquake or plane
crash, they have no moving parts, and they require no
electricity. However, some industry experts point out that
transferring the fuel involves risks of its own and that the US
still lacks a dedicated repository for nuclear waste.
