Nuke waste casks moved around during Virginia quake (Jack Bog's Blog)

After spent nuclear fuel rods have been sitting in pools of water for several years, they can be taken out and stored in large concrete casks. With no permanent nuclear waste solution in sight in this country, that's where a lot of our old rods now sit. If we're not mistaken, all of the Trojan plant's waste is now stored that way, above ground, next to the mighty Columbia River in scenic Rainier, Oregon. The rods will remain hella deadly for thousands of years, but as long as they're in these casks, and the casks stay intact, everything's fine.

The casks won't last forever, though, and the rods will probably have to be taken out of old casks and put into new ones every few hundred years. My heaven, it's so absurd even to be writing about that.

Anyway, the latest news from Virginia is a little unsettling. About two dozen vertical casks at the North Anna nuclear power plant, about seven miles from the epicenter of the August 23 earthquake, apparently shifted about 4½ inches on their pads during all the shaking. If those babies start falling or crumbling, the surrounding area could find itself in some deep kim chee.

It also turns out that the nuclear plant itself may have been shaken beyond its design limits, which means that the neighbors are dang lucky there wasn't a serious breach in some crucial system or other. Oh, that safe, clean, cheap nuclear power.

Comments (3)

OK, a little fangurl time here ... THANK YOU for keeping this subject alive.

Posted by Molly | September 1, 2011 7:11 AM

Here is an article that describes the casks that the fuel rods were place in to. Each cask weighs 200,000 pounds and rests on an air cushion.
http://www.nwlaborpress.org/1999/11-19-99Trojan.html
There were a number of barrels marked "Radioactive waste" that contained plastic gloves, paper suits, masking tape, paper booties, paper towels---in other words trash---that unfortunately has some barely detectable radioactive particle---known affectionately as a "zoomie"-- emnbedded somewhere in the fibers.

Since we wouldn't want anyone to develop a cancer from these---at the ripe old age of 200 y/o--they had to be placed in sealed barrels and labeled radioactive. These were stored to the south of the containment building, in a fenced area, but were visible from a distance with good binoculars. Gave some people a scare---but you could use them as a lunch table, safely. Not that we could....

(Ron Swaren, UN State of the World Forum, and former Trojan worker)

Posted by Ron Swaren | September 1, 2011 8:55 AM

They tested hitting those dry casks with locomotives going full speed when they were first created to make sure that they wouldn't break open in any conceivable scenario. I doubt having one fall over during a quake will impart more energy than that.

Posted by MachineShedFred | September 1, 2011 10:49 AM

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Nuke waste casks moved around during Virginia quake

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