NO MORE NUKE WASTE DENIAL FOR JAPAN

Danger of Spent Fuel Outweighs Reactor Threat
Keith Bradsher and Hiroko Tabuchi, March 17, 2011 (NY Times)

"Years of procrastination in deciding on long-term disposal of highly radioactive fuel rods from nuclear reactors are now coming back to haunt Japanese authorities…Some countries have tried to limit the number of spent fuel rods that accumulate at nuclear power plants — Germany stores them in costly casks…Chinese nuclear reactors send them to a desert storage compound…But Japan, like the United States, has kept ever larger numbers of spent fuel rods in temporary storage pools at the power plants, where they can be guarded with the same security provided for the power plant.

"…[M]ost of the dangerous uranium at the [Fukushima] power plant is actually in the spent fuel rods [in the storage pools], not the reactor cores…Nuclear engineers around the world have been expressing surprise this week that the storage pools have become such a problem…Very high levels of radiation above the storage pools suggest that the water has drained…raising the question of whether the pools may also be leaking…"

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"Tokyo Electric said this week that there was a chance of “recriticality” in the storage ponds — that is to say, the uranium in the fuel rods could become critical in nuclear terms and resume the fission that previously took place inside the reactor, spewing out radioactive byproducts…[T]his was very unlikely, but could happen…If recriticality occurs, pouring on pure water could actually cause fission to take place even faster…

"Tokyo Electric has said very little about the biggest repository of spent fuel assemblies… located in a common storage pool immediately inland from reactor No. 4…Japan had hoped to solve the spent fuel buildup with a large-scale plan to recycle the rods into fuel that would go back into its nuclear program. But…that plan had been hit with massive setbacks…After countless construction delays, test runs [at a $28 billion reprocessing facility]…[L]ate 2010, its opening was delayed by another two years…"

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"…Japan also built the Monju, a fast breeder reactor, which started running in full in 1994. But a year later, a fire caused by a sodium leak shut down the plant…Despite revelations that the operator, the quasi-governmental Japan Atomic Energy Agency, had covered up the seriousness of the accident, Monju again started operating…in May…Another nuclear reprocessing facility in Tokaimura has been shut down since 1999, when an accident at an experimental fast breeder showered hundreds in the vicinity with radiation, and two workers were killed…

"Many of these facilities were hit by Friday’s massive quake. A spent fuel pool at Rokkasho spilled over, and power at the plant was knocked out, triggering back-up generators, Japan Nuclear Fuel said…[A]bout 3,000 tons of fuel are stored at Rokkasho. But the plant, built 55 meters (180 feet) above sea level, was spared from the destructive tsunami that followed the quake. Grid power was restored on Monday…"