Spent fuel pools special vulnerabilities that are different in different specific designs, but all possess some risk of severe consequences in worst-case accidents or worst-case terrorist attacks(which were studied by the National Academies in their 2006 report).
Pellets of radioactive fuel, ejected when the reactor exploded, went into the spent fuel pool located above the reactor and have begun melting down so seriously they are boiling off the water in the spent fuel pool.
According to the scenario, the biggest risk during the meltdown crisis wasn't the reactors themselves but the spent fuel pools sitting atop them, particularly the one above reactor 4, which still contains about 1,500 nuclear fuel assemblies, Tasaka said.
The period for which the spent fuel may be stored at the facility is 50 years for each building, but since the second building will not be built for another 10 to 15 years, the maximum storage period for the facility as a whole will be about 65 years.
Despite growing international concerns over the state of spent fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, two government experts said on May 21 that there are no plans to speed up their scheduled removal by 2015.
With radiation levels increasing as the situation deteriorated in one reactor, explosions in other reactors sent debris flying through the air, while damage to equipment and facilities stymied efforts to address the situation in yet other reactors and spent fuel storage pools- the dangers seemed to multiply at every step.
However, while it seems to be widely assumed that the radioactivity has been emanating only from the reactor vessel(s), it is unclear whether some of it is also being released from the Unit 1 spent fuel pool, which may have been damaged by the explosion.
Citing the NRC's conclusion, which later turned out to be a mistake, that the spent fuel pool in Reactor No. 4 at Fukushima Dai-ichi must have been dried up, Dr Jaczko emphasized the importance of the timely delivery of information relevant to the possible worst-case scenario to the public when the public demands it most.
With more radioactive Cesium in the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant's spent fuel pool than was released by Fukushima, Chernobyl, and all nuclear bomb testing combined, Gundersen and Lockbaum ask why there is not a single procedure in place to deal with a crisis in the fuel pool?
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