Absurd plans for DOE spending on spent fuel

This link has the background.
http://www.mtexpress.com/news/environment/activists-call-inl-study-inadequate/article_d0459ae2-1a02-11e5-a4e2-d741c65484d1.html

July 3, 2015

Letter to Idaho Mountain Express

Activists and INL

A lot of commotion is aroused by two planned shipments of 25 fuel rods each. It lines the pockets of assorted lawyers and resurrects at least two dead politicians.  On top of all that, the plans are absurd.  A full bundle of rods is necessary.  It should be shipped to France; they know what needs to be done and they owe us a favor or two.   Down the road we may ship all of our used fuel to France.  That will be much less expensive than the DOE sinkhole.

 

Robert H. Leyse,

Sun Valley

And, here is another.

July 24, 2015

Letter to Idaho Mountain Express

 Absurd Spent Fuel Research at Idaho National Laboratory

In my letter that was posted three weeks ago, I accurately and concisely described the planned research as absurd for two sets of 25 fuel rods from commercial nuclear power plants at the Idaho National Laboratory.   It is absurd because a full bundle of rods is necessary.  The interaction of the structures of the bundle with the individual fuel rods is significant and can only be determined by a meticulous dissection of the complete bundle.

What is even worse, the Department of Energy (DOE) with advice from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is choosing the spent fuel based only on the amount of time in service.   As EPRI knows, it is the severity of service, and not the length of service, that has the greatest impact on the long term durability of the fuel in storage.  The fuel that is currently in the reactors is subjected to very much less rough service because the nuclear power industry has learned a lot after decades of operations.  In contrast to this, hundreds of fuel bundles were subjected to severe conditions during the earlier decades of nuclear plant operations.  This is the fuel that must be examined in order to assess the potential impacts of long term storage.

In a nutshell DOE needs a bundle; that bundle must be selected from the hundreds that have been roughed-up.

Robert H. Leyse,

Sun Valley

Here is a reference to the most recent improvements in fuel technology for Boiling Water Reactors:

https://nuclear.gepower.com/content/dam/gepower-nuclear/global/en_US/documents/product-fact-sheets/GNF3_Product_Update.pdf