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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 ...
Caesium-134 is found in spent nuclear fuel but is not produced by nuclear weapon explosions, as it is only formed by neutron capture on stable Cs-133, which is only produced by beta decay of Xe-133 with a half-life of 3 days. Cs-134 has a half-life of 2 years and may be a major source of gamma radiation in the first 20 years after discharge.
The radiation hazard from spent nuclear fuel declines as its radioactive components decay, but remains high for many years. For example 10 years after removal from a reactor, the surface dose rate for a typical spent fuel assembly still exceeds 10,000 rem/hour, resulting in a fatal dose in just minutes. [20]
A 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant produces about 27 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel (unreprocessed) every year. [44] For comparison, the amount of ash produced by coal power plants in the United States is estimated at 130,000,000 t per year [ 45 ] and fly ash is estimated to release 100 times more radiation than an equivalent nuclear power plant.
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. [39]
At Indian Point nuclear power plant, 125 hardened casks of spent radioactive fuel sit idle, waiting until someone can figure out how to safely transport and dispose of them.. So far, no one's come ...
About 19,000 tons of spent fuel, a byproduct of nuclear power generation, is stored at power plants across Japan, taking up about 80% of their storage capacity, according to the economy and ...
Behavior of nuclear fuel during a reactor accident; List of companies in the nuclear sector; S. Separative work units; Spent nuclear fuel; T. Thorium; Thorium Energy ...