thousands of years. Dave Kraft, director of Nuclear Energy Information Service, headquartered in Evanston, says Exelon has not proved it can safely store nuclear waste.
“It’s important to understand that the existing moratorium has served and protected us well from becoming a radioactive waste dump,” he says.
Kraft says the state is hurtling toward a dangerous future, without resolving the problems of the past. The recent vote to repeal the moratorium means the Department of Energy could designate the state as a “temporary storage facility” for high-level radioactive waste, he says. Without a moratorium, Kraft’s organization says, more reactors and wastes will be drawn into the state over time, which means “more wastes generated and stored on-site, threat of accident and sabotage and potential damage to water sources and ecosystems.”
Advocates say nuclear power stations, like Clinton Power Station, have lower emissions when compared with coal or oil. The station lacks the most well-known symbol of nuclear power: the giant cooling tower constantly wafting clouds of water vapor. Instead, the station uses Clinton Lake as a source for cooling water, sharing the body of water with the city’s 7,000 residents, who swim, boat and fish in the lake.
Instead of a cooling tower, Clinton Power Station uses a boiling water reactor, which heats water from the lake in order to generate power. Water from Clinton Lake is pumped in to be heated and then pumped back to the lake to be cooled. Uranium fuel pellets, about the size of a penny, undergo nuclear fission, which provides heat that turns water into steam. Steam turbines are used to power generators, which in turn produce electricity.
The turbines are the most crucial part of the station, radiation protection manager Jeff Stovall says, as they are spinning constantly, generating electricity. The turbines are to the station as a battery is to a car, Stovall says.
“Imagine riding around the United States for two years in a car without stopping. We need to be able to ensure that we’re working all the time. We want it to run thoroughly and run well.”
Every two years, the station has a “forced outage,” meaning it must shut down to replace the uranium in the reactor.
“Imagine riding around the United States for two years in a car without stopping,” he explains. “We need to be able to ensure that we’re working all the time. We want it to run thoroughly and run well.”
Kanavos says this method of generating electricity is much more environmentally friendly than coal. The uranium pellets are sealed in special metal rods, which are bundled together into a fuel assembly. These rods are good for two years.
“Compared with coal or oil, our reactor has a two-year cycle,” Kanavos explains. “After two years, we have to refuel, but a large coal plant runs on a pile of coal that’s good for 30 days at most. Even the cleanest coal plants contribute to greenhouse gases and toxic emissions. We don’t burn fossil fuels, we just make steam – that’s the difference.”
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the Obama administration has filed a motion to withdraw the license application for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The new Commission on America’s Nuclear Future will look into new, safe, long-term storage solutions. For the time being, spent fuel from power stations will be stored on-site.
After the uranium-containing rods are replaced, they’re stored inside the station, under 60 feet of water. The spent fuel storage pool combines the 14-foot rods made of old uranium with “control” rods designed to prevent any kind of reaction, with water acting as an additional shield. About 200 bundles of fuel are removed from the reactor each time, Stovall says, which is about half the reactor’s core. Spent fuel contains one-fifth the original amount of uranium, according to Exelon.
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