Press Room

“Because of its proximity to most of the nation’s reactors, access to ports, and its nuclear material processing history, Savannah River Site in South Caro­li­na is considered by some to be a prime candidate for the interim storage and reprocessing of spent power reactor fuel,” wrote Bob Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank.

. . . Alvarez, a former U.S. De­part­ment of Energy adviser, calculated such a facility at SRS would likely involve “hundreds to thousands of shipments of dry canisters” moved by rail or truck.

Citing spent nuclear fuel data from the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pilot storage facility there might store as much as 5,000 metric tons containing more than 1 billion curies of intermediate and long-lived radioactive wastes, the report said.

“This (is) more than twice the radioactivity currently contained in high-level wastes stored at the SRS site, which already has the single largest concentration of radioactivity of any DOE site,” Alvarez wrote.

“Because of its proximity to most of the nation’s reactors, access to ports, and its nuclear material processing history, Savannah River Site in South Caro­li­na is considered by some to be a prime candidate for the interim storage and reprocessing of spent power reactor fuel,” wrote Bob Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank.

The nation’s spent fuel inventory – more than 75,000 tons – was to be buried in a repository in Nevada’s Yucca Moun­tain until the project was halted by the administration, whose Blue Ribbon Commission suggested “consolidated, interim storage” of the dangerous material until a solution can be found.

Alvarez, a former U.S. De­part­ment of Energy adviser, calculated such a facility at SRS would likely involve “hundreds to thousands of shipments of dry canisters” moved by rail or truck.

Citing spent nuclear fuel data from the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pilot storage facility there might store as much as 5,000 metric tons containing more than 1 billion curies of intermediate and long-lived radioactive wastes, the report said.

“This (is) more than twice the radioactivity currently contained in high-level wastes stored at the SRS site, which already has the single largest concentration of radioactivity of any DOE site,” Alvarez wrote.

A federal strategy to consolidate spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s 104 commercial power reactors could send huge volumes of radioactive waste to Savannah River Site, according to a study released Thursday.

“Because of its proximity to most of the nation’s reactors, access to ports, and its nuclear material processing history, Savannah River Site in South Caro­li­na is considered by some to be a prime candidate for the interim storage and reprocessing of spent power reactor fuel,” wrote Bob Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank.

. . . Citing spent nuclear fuel data from the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pilot storage facility there might store as much as 5,000 metric tons containing more than 1 billion curies of intermediate and long-lived radioactive wastes, the report said.

. . . “This (is) more than twice the radioactivity currently contained in high-level wastes stored at the SRS site, which already has the single largest concentration of radioactivity of any DOE site,” Alvarez wrote.