All true... and one might add that in footprint terms, using once -
used radioactive fuel residue is about as «low footprint» as producing power gets.
Before that can happen, though, nuclear power will have to overcome the unresolved issue of how to dispose
of radioactive fuel waste.
That would be 10 TIMES DEEPER than the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Storage Facility for
spent radioactive fuel rods.
The pools — water - filled basins that store and cool used
radioactive fuel rods — are so densely packed with nuclear waste that a fire could release enough radioactive material to contaminate an area twice the size of New Jersey.
Albrecht - Schmitt said that the discoveries could help scientists build new storage containers for radioactive waste, plus help
separate radioactive fuel, which means the fuel could be recycled.
The safety of deep pools used to store used
radioactive fuel at nuclear plants has been an issue since the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in March.
The maximum hazard from a crippled nuclear power plant depends on how
much radioactive fuel is on site, both in the reactors and in the storage pools.
Some supernovae have a reserve tank
of radioactive fuel that cuts in and powers their explosions for three times longer than astronomers had previously thought.
To ensure that moving
spent radioactive fuel is being carried out with the minimum of risks, Sandia National Laboratories recently completed a nuclear «triathlon» of a simulated cargo of spent fuel rods over 14,500 mi to record the stress and jolts that fuel undergoes in transit.
If fuel rods remain uncovered, they may begin to melt, and hot,
radioactive fuel can pool at the bottom of the vessel containing the reactor.
«The result could be a runaway oxidation reaction» and the release of radioactive fission gases» and some of
the radioactive fuel material.
Pound for pound, nuclear explosives — which derive their power from runaway chain reactions in
their radioactive fuel — carry about a million times the energy density of chemical explosives.
He concedes the U.S. «is extraordinarily inept» in developing a safe way to store spent
radioactive fuel, pointing to the decades - long attempt to use Yucca Mountain as a repository.