Fermi 2 delays unloading of pool into dry casks due to seismic risk

NRCfile photo of Fermi 2 on the Lake Erie shorelineThe Monroe Evening News in Michigan reported on June 10th:

Fermi fuel transfer being delayed

DTE Energy will delay moving used nuclear fuel from inside its Fermi 2 plant to outside casks until spring, due to lingering questions about how an earthquake might impact the process.

At key issue appears to be whether the first floor of the reactor building at the plant could withstand a severe earthquake while bearing the additional 300,000-pound weight of a fully loaded fuel storage cask.

The company said as part of a continuing “rigorous review and analysis,” it decided further evaluation was needed regarding the impact that a seismic event would have on the first floor of the reactor building while loaded casks are being moved to the new outside storage pad.

The plant needs to load the used fuel into casks and move them to the outside storage area because it is running out of room for fuel in the storage pool in the reactor building. The utility had planned to transfer the fuel this summer, but now expects to do so after a refueling shutdown that will end sometime in April.

“This has to do with us asking the safety question as to what would happen during an earthquake in the short time that canister is there and the stability of the floor in that area where there is a fully loaded dry fuel container,” said Guy Cerullo, a DTE Energy spokesman at the plant. “If there was no earthquake, it’s not an issue.”

The utility has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the change in its expected timetable. It said it would continue to conduct a safety analysis and explore its options. Those options could include physical reinforcement of the reactor building or floor, Mr. Cerullo said.

“This is a very short period of time that the condition exists,” Mr. Cerullo said. “It’s measured in minutes – less than a half hour – and it occurs infrequently, but we’re committed to safety in every aspect of the dry fuel storage process.”

“It’s important to remember, too, that this doesn’t affect the normal operation of the plant. There’s nothing wrong with the way the reactor building is made. It’s built to withstand 10 times the strongest earthquake we’ve had in the last 100 years.”

He said the company would be considering its options over the next several months, design alternatives, review them with the NRC and then implement them.

Reinforcement of the reactor building or floor could be among the options the company would consider to address the matter.

Meanwhile, the company has enough fuel storage capacity in its fuel pool through the next refueling shutdown next spring, he said.

The utility only recently grappled with NRC questions about whether the concrete storage pad that will hold the fuel-filled casks would endure a severe earthquake. It satisfied safety regulators after redoing calculations on the pad.

The plan is to load the heavy fuel in 64 vertical casks arrayed on the 141-foot-square concrete storage pad. The casks, each about 20 feet high, 11 feet in diameter and made of 2-foot-thick concrete, would stand on the 2-foot-thick concrete pad.

Electrical fire knocks out cooling to high-level radioactive waste storage pool at Fort Calhoun, Nebraska

John Sullivan reports for ProPublica that an electrical fire at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska temporarily cut power for running the cooling water circulation pumps in the high-level radioactive waste storage pool. If the power disruption had persisted for 88 hours, the pool would have boiled dry, and the high-level radioactive waste would have caught on fire. A 1997 study done for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reported that such a high-level radioactive waste storage pool fire could release 8 to 80 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 into the environment, resulting in downwind consequences of 54,000 to 143,000 latent cancer deaths, 2,000 to 7,000 square kilometers of agricultural land condemned, and economic damages of $117 to $566 BILLION. A 2001 NRC report, NUREG-1738, calculated that 25,000 people, as far away as 500 miles downwind, would die from cancer caused by escaping radioactivity from a pool fire. Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant is also currently facing severe flooding on the Missouri River.

How much high-level radioactive waste is currently stored on the Great Lakes shoreline?

The Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River represent 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and provide drinking water for 40 million Americans, Canadians, and numerous Indigenous Peoples in Native American/First Nations.Well over 50,000 tons on the Canada side, and nearly 14,000 tons on the U.S. side (not even counting the high-level radioactive waste glass logs at the long-shuttered West Valley, NY reprocessing facility). Kevin Kamps calculated these figures -- including breakdowns for how much is at each nuclear power plant on the U.S. side -- for use at the May 14, 2011 International Roundtable on Great Lakes Nuclear Issues in Dearborn, Michigan -- see his powerpoint entry below. Of course, this mountain of radioactive waste stored on the Great Lakes shoreline -- with nowhere to go -- will continue to grow, and significantly higher -- the longer atomic reactors continue to operate. Given the unacceptable risks, they need to be abolished, replaced with renewables and efficiency, and the generation of high-level radioactive waste stopped.

Work continues to shore up Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool

NHK public broadcasting in Japan reports that steel beams and a concrete wall will be installed by the end of this month in a desparate attempt to support a wall of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool at risk of catastrophic failure. A large hydgrogen gas explosion at Unit 4 on March 15th -- and a second, even larger hydrogen gas explosion at Unit 3 -- has so damaged the Unit 4 reactor building that it is listing to one side, threatening to collapse its high-level radioactive waste storage pool within. If the pool were to suddenly lose its cooling water supply, the high-level radioactive waste within could catch on fire within hours. A collapse could also jam irradiated nuclear fuel close together, sparking a nuclear chain reaction if the fuel remains immersed in enough neutron-moderating water cover. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported in 2001 that a high-level radioactive waste storage pool fire in the U.S. could kill more than 25,000 people downwind, at distances as far away as 500 miles. Given the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 pool's location outside of primary containment, all releases will escape directly into the environment, especially considering the secondary containment reactor building was largely destroyed by the large hydrogen gas explosion. 

"Radioactive Waste Risks to the Great Lakes: Lessons from Fukushima"

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps presented a powerpoint on the many risks of high-level radioactive waste storage on the shorelines of the Great Lakes at an international (U.S.-Canadian) roundtable at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan. The May 14th event was entitled "Nuclear Threats to the Great Lakes, and the Transition to Safe, Clean Energy," and was sponsored by the college's renewable energy department, as well as the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter and Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination.