With the end of its 40-year license approaching in 2012, the owners of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth have applied for a 20-year extension. Opponents question the reactor's safety after three sister reactors in Japan experienced explosions and likely meltdowns this past year. Read part one of our three-part series.At Pilgrim, about 3,000 spent fuel rods now sit in a pool of water designed more than 40 years ago to hold only one-third that amount. In Fukushima, spent rods placed in what's called "dry cask storage" fared well during the disaster and were safe, while some rods in “wet pools” melted down. Politicians and activists want Pilgrim's spent rods placed in dry storage, thereby reducing the risk. But it is expensive, and so far the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not required it.
PLYMOUTH — Mary Lampert stepped down from the dais at Harvard Medical School and reacted to an audience member's assertion that within 5 years there would be a federal repository for spent nuclear fuel.
“Well, I now believe in Santa Claus because the whole thing is going to be resolved in 5 years,” she said. “And maybe the Easter bunny too.”
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Mary Lampert is the director of the advocacy group Pilgrim Watch. (Courtesy of Pilgrim Watch.) |
When the US began building nuclear power plants in the late 1950s, the federal government said it would handle the reactors' waste by transporting it to either a reprocessing plant or an underground repository.
Neither happened. States didn’t want it.
So, with nowhere to go, spent fuel rods are mostly stored in circulating pools of water to keep them cool. They’re kept on-site at 104 reactors across the US, including Pilgrim in Plymouth.
"There is no radioactive waste fairy,” Lampert said. “I don't think you are going to find a lot of people begging to have a deep geologic repository tomorrow. It is going to take a very, very long time. The NRC recognizes this. All grown-ups recognize this."