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Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and, depending on its point along the nuclear fuel cycle , it will have different isotopic ...
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a timetable and procedure for constructing a permanent, underground repository for high-level radioactive waste by the mid-1990s, and provided for some temporary storage of waste, including spent fuel from 104 civilian nuclear reactors that produce about 19.4% of electricity there. [38]
Spent fuel pool. High-level radioactive waste is stored for 10 or 20 years in spent fuel pools, and then can be put in dry cask storage facilities.. In 1997, in the 20 countries which account for most of the world's nuclear power generation, spent fuel storage capacity at the reactors was 148,000 tonnes, with 59% of this utilized.
The Onkalo is a planned deep geological repository for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel [60] [61] near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Eurajoki, on the west coast of Finland. Picture of a pilot cave at final depth in Onkalo. Several methods of disposal of radioactive waste have been investigated: [62] Deep geological repository
The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant on a 1,075-acre (435 ha) site in Louisa County, Virginia, in the Mid-Atlantic United States.The site is operated by Dominion Generation company and is jointly owned by the Dominion Virginia Power corporation (88.4%) and by the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (11.6%).
Simply heating spent oxide fuel in an inert atmosphere or vacuum at a temperature between 700 °C (1,292 °F) and 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) as a first reprocessing step can remove several volatile elements, including caesium whose isotope caesium-137 emits about half of the heat produced by the spent fuel over the following 100 years of cooling ...
Risks of nuclear energy systems aren't limited to deliberate bombing/shelling of or near nuclear energy plants – nuclear energy systems within war-zones in general have various additional vulnerabilities. Deliberate or unintentional bombing/shelling of or near radioactive waste-sites [15] is a further concern.
The most long-lived radioactive wastes, including spent nuclear fuel, usually must be contained and isolated from the environment for a long period of time. Spent nuclear fuel storage is mostly a problem in the United States, following a 1977 prohibition by then-President Jimmy Carter on nuclear fuel recycling. France, The United Kingdom, and ...