TVA plans for nuke waste storage ripped

TVA plans for nuke waste storage ripped

By The Associated Press

ATHENS, Ala. - Tennessee Valley Authority officials said they plan to begin storing radioactive spent uranium fuel rods at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in large, above ground concrete containers in 2005.

TVA officials said the storage process will be safe. But Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a watchdog group in Knoxville, said the plan is disturbing.

"It's just one of the consequences of choosing nuclear power as an option, that you will have nuclear waste piling up on the banks of the Tennessee River," Smith told The Birmingham News for a Tuesday story.

Used uranium fuel rods from the plant's two operating reactors are currently stored in specially designed racks at the bottom of steel-lined, 40-foot-deep concrete pools inside the plant.

Room in the pools, which were originally meant for temporary storage, is expected to begin running out in several years.

TVA and other utilities around the country are looking for ways to store nuclear waste while waiting for the Department of Energy to build a permanent national nuclear waste storage facility.

The proposed site for the facility, which has been met with opposition, is deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

"Until such time as DOE accepts the spent fuel, evaluations of available storage expansion technologies have demonstrated that the safest and most cost-effective option for Browns Ferry is dry storage - the use of above ground, concrete containers with steel inner canisters," TVA said in a statement.

"Dry storage of spent fuel is a proven technology that already is used at 14 U.S. nuclear power plants."