An unused spent fuel storage canister once intended for use at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station arrived at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Wednesday to become part of an investigation into long-term storage solutions for the nation’s nuclear waste, the lab said.
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) research team in Oak Ridge, Tenn., will use empty, 22-ton canister for “investigating methods to help the nation effectively dispose of nuclear waste for the long term,” the Wednesday press release said. Rose Montgomery, head of the lab’s used fuel and nuclear material disposition group, is leading the team in charge of these investigations.
ORNL is one of three national labs the Department of Energy picked to receive unused canisters, the release said. The one that arrived in Tennessee Wednesday was never actually used for anything at California’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). The plant which shut down in 2013 and is being decommissioning by a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions.
If the Oak Ridge research team can devise a way to use current spent fuel canisters for long term storage, their findings could help avoid “the cost and complexity of repackaging spent fuel into smaller purpose-built disposal containers, eliminat[e] the need to dispose of the existing canisters as low-level radioactive waste and potentially decreas[e] the risk to workers who otherwise would be involved in the repackaging,” ORNL said.
