Scientists Say Nuclear Fuel Pools Pose Safety, Health Risks

[Lodestar]

Ninety-six aboveground, aquamarine pools around the country that hold the nuclear industry's spent reactor fuel may not be as safe as U.S. regulators and the nuclear industry have publicly asserted, a study released May 20 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine warned.

Citing a little-noticed study by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the academies said that if an accident or an act of terrorism at a densely-filled pool caused a leak that drains the water away from the rods, a cataclysmic release of long-lasting radiation could force the extended evacuation of nearly 3.5 million people from territory larger than the state of New Jersey. It could also cause thousands of cancer deaths from excess radiation exposure, and as much as $700 billion dollars in costs to the national economy.

This story was originally published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.

Ninety-six aboveground, aquamarine pools around the country that hold the nuclear industry's spent reactor fuel may not be as safe as U.S. regulators and the nuclear industry have publicly asserted, a study released May 20 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine warned.

Citing a little-noticed study by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the academies said that if an accident or an act of terrorism at a densely-filled pool caused a leak that drains the water away from the rods, a cataclysmic release of long-lasting radiation could force the extended evacuation of nearly 3.5 million people from territory larger than the state of New Jersey. It could also cause thousands of cancer deaths from excess radiation exposure, and as much as $700 billion dollars in costs to the national economy.

Until an earthquake and a tsunami pummeled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, the possibility of such a catastrophe in the more than 30 states where nuclear fuel sits in radioactive pools seemed almost unthinkable. But the academies' new report - their second and final study of that event - says that the operators of U.S. nuclear plants and the commission that regulates them haven't fully grasped all the safety risks and as a result may be exposing the public to unwarranted dangers.

'There were some important issues that were not considered," said Joseph E. Shepherd, a professor of aeronautics and mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology who chaired the Academies board that conducted the study. Specifically, he was referring to the NRC's choice not to evaluate the risk of terrorism or insider sabotage as it considered spent-fuel pool safety.

The report's authors called not only for a new federal estimate of the safety and financial risks of a fuel fire but for a new examination of the relative benefits of withdrawing the spent fuel rods from the pools and storing them instead in dry casks aboveground. That idea has been promoted by some nuclear physicists and engineers for three decades but furiously opposed by the struggling industry because it could cost utilities as much as $4 billion.

cont'd
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/scientists-say-nuclear-fuel-pools-pose-safety-health-risks-n577666

Read the Center for Public Integrity's version of this story.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/20/19712/scientists-say-nuclear-fuel-pools-around-country-pose-safety-and-health-risks

[chervilant]

1. One of many reasons

I have long opposed nuclear power.

[GliderGuider]

2. In this clever paraphrase, a layman draws an uncomfortable parallel

Extending a full 50 miles above ground, the air around the world that serves as a repository for spent fossil fuels may not be as safe as U.S. regulators and the coal, oil and gas industries have publicly asserted, a study released Mar 25, 2014 by the World Health Organization warned.

In their little-noticed study, the World Heath Organization said that the normal use of thermal fuels has caused a cataclysmic release of long-lasting carbon dioxide and particulate matter that is now causing the deaths of 7 million people, on every one of the world's 7 continents, across over 500 million square kilometers - an area equal to that of the entire Earth. It could also cause millions of deaths from famine as the world's food and water supplies break down. Tens of millions of people are expected to flee their homelands in desperation over the coming decades, to face an uncertain life of deprivation and hostility in other countries. Potential losses to the world economy are calculated to be many trillions of dollars.

But by all means get bent right out of shape over nuclear power. It's a far larger threat, after all...

[Duppers]

4. ^^^^

Indeed.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Report here:

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/21874/lessons-learned-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-accident-for-improving-safety-and-security-of-us-nuclear-plants