Spent Fuel
Vermont Yankee's spent fuel pool is nearing capacity. Since there is no projected date for operations start for the national long-term nuclear waste storage facility at the nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain Repository, Entergy Nuclear obtained approval for dry-cask storage to avoid exceeding the pool's licensed capacity; this allows for continued operations to store additional spent fuel, beyond the original operating license term, ending in 2012. In lieu of relocation of spent fuel to an operating national nuclear waste repository, some of the spent fuel has been transferred to "dry-storage" casks on site; most of the spent fuel continues to be stored in the spent fuel pool.
Vermont Yankee began the first stage of its dry-cask storage program in May 2008. The first 97 short tons (88 t) fully loaded cask was accidentally dropped onto the refueling floor from a height of about 4 inches (100 mm), after being raised from the spent fuel pool. The accident was attributed to failure of a relay in the 110 short tons (100 t)-rated overhead crane. (The crane reportedly was tested in 1975 for only about 70% of the weight of a fully loaded cask.) In August 2008, Vermont Yankee successfully completed the first stage of its dry-storage program with the transfer of the fifth cask from the reactor building to a storage pad located above the 500-year floodplain of the Connecticut River. A large specially-designed cask-moving machine transports casks to the pad. Each cask contains 68 spent fuel assemblies.
Read more about this topic: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant
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