Uranium Storage Facilities
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) currently regulates fuel cycle facilities and uranium recovery facilities in Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. The following map depicts the locations of these facilities, while the Alphabetical List of Mapped Materials Facilities (below the map) identifies each facility by.
The vast majority of nuclear waste in the U.S. is spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. Before it is used, nuclear fuel exists as uranium oxide pellets that are sealed within zirconium tubes, which are themselves bundled together.
These bundles of fuel rods are about 12 to 16 feet long and about 5 to 8 inches in diameter. As a result, the vast majority of nuclear waste-especially spent nuclear fuel -remains stored on-site at the very facilities where it was created. These sites were never meant to be long-term storage solutions, yet they now hold the nation's most hazardous materials.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, that previously produced enriched uranium, including highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the U.S. nuclear weapons program and Navy nuclear propulsion; in later years, it produced low. Nuclear Waste Storage In the absence of a permanent geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste, commercial nuclear power plants have been storing SNF on site using wet pool and dry cask storage methods pursuant to regulations promulgated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the Atomic Energy Act, as amended (P.L.
83-703). Portsmouth Site The Portsmouth Site, located in Piketon, Ohio, consisted of four main areas historically totaling more than 3,700 acres: the former gaseous diffusion plant, centrifuge facilities, depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion (DUF6) facility and On-Site Waste Disposal Facility (OSWDF). In a nuclear reactor, the fission reactions fueled by the uranium in those rods emit heat that is used to create hot water or steam to drive turbines and generate electricity.
The threat of water One threat to these storage methods is corrosion. Because they need water to both transfer nuclear energy into electricity and to cool the reactor, nuclear power plants are always located alongside sources of water. In the U.S., nine are within two miles of the ocean, which poses a particular threat to the waste containers.
Permanent disposal solutions, such as the Yucca Mountain project, and programs for recycling used fuel rods continue to face steep regulatory and political hurdles. Even simple materials, such as concrete and steel, can be up to 75% more expensive when used to construct nuclear power plants and waste storage facilities because of extra regulations.