Sentences with phrase «nuclear fuel rods»

The agency was supposed to begin collecting spent nuclear fuel rods in 1998 and remains responsible for storing them.

«The release of that steam is the way they're getting rid of energy» in order to keep cooling the damaged nuclear fuel rods, he explains.

An artist's rendering of nuclear fuel rods in front of a colorful computational valley predicted for alloying compositions.

This problem continues to grow because there remains no place for used nuclear fuel rod storage other than such pools or massive dry casks — both located on nuclear facility grounds.

The NRC issued a license in 2006 to Private Fuel Storage, LLC, a nuclear power utility consortium, to build temporary above - ground storage for spent nuclear fuel rods in Utah.

That hydrogen buildup was the result of hot steam coming into contact with overheated nuclear fuel rods covered by a cladding of zirconium alloy, or «zircaloy» — the material used as fuel - rod cladding in all water - cooled nuclear reactors, which constitute more than 90 percent of the world's power reactors.

Nuclear fuel rods began melting and volatile hydrogen gas built up.

Any future discussion of nuclear power will have to take a hard look at regulation and safety, in particular the practice of storing spent nuclear fuel rods on - site

Critics question the announcement, but a cold shutdown is when water used to cool nuclear fuel rods remains below boiling point, preventing the fuel from reheating

The smaller reactor uses the same nuclear fuel rods — albeit slightly shorter in length to fit — but fissions them more slowly, operating for four years before fresh fuel is needed.

Dominion Virginia Power has discovered two damaged nuclear fuel rods at its North Anna power plant, 90 miles (140 km) southwest of Washington, and has shut it down

The culprit in all three cases is likely a build - up of explosive hydrogen gas — as occurred at Three Mile Island in the U.S. in 1979 as a result of the meltdown there — caused by nuclear fuel rods experiencing extremely high temperatures stripping the hydrogen out of the plant's steam.

The question that should be asked is why zirconium is still used in cladding for nuclear fuel rods after being implicated in the Three Mile Island disaster.

Such «re-racking» is a common practice in the U.S. nuclear industry, under regulation from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, given the lack of an off - site solution for storing used nuclear fuel rods.

Trains carry a wide variety of toxic materials, from spent nuclear fuel rods to highly caustic chemicals.

Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk to humans, but they said the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods.

If the pool leaks or the cooling system breaks, as happened in Japan, the nuclear fuel rods could become exposed and release radioactive gas.

The pipes in and out of the reactor sit above the nuclear fuel rods themselves, ensuring that any leaks do not result in uncovered fuel.

Some 16 months after meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, operations to remove the nuclear fuel rods from the site have finally begun

In the U.S., the plan to use Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as a repository for spent nuclear fuel rods is in limbo, opposed by the Obama administration.

Tokyo Electric Power Company now says that the nuclear fuel rods fully melted down in Fukushima reactor number one and burned a hole in the thick steel vessel surrounding them.

Such nuclear fuel recycling involves taking used nuclear fuel rods, separating out plutonium and other fission by - products, and then combining the result with fresh uranium to produce usable fuel — known as mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.

And the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2006 suggested the practice of overcrowding pools for the storage of spent nuclear fuel rods — that has caused fires and explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, which stores far less used fuel than typical U.S. plants — could prove dangerous.

Nuclear fuel rods are made of hundreds of small pellets of enriched uranium placed end - to - end inside hollow tubes of zircaloy that are about a half - inch across.

The covering darkness is not the only reason for confusion: vital systems monitors have lost power, making the status of critical elements — such as the integrity of the nuclear fuel rods in reactor No. 2 or of the steel vessel containing them — unavailable.

When a commercial nuclear generating station irradiates a nuclear fuel rod, nuclear power production does not result in significant greenhouse gas emissions and during normal operations the radioactivity emissions produce far fewer health effects than emissions from coal - fueled plants.