Nuclear Spent Fuel Expert Describes Vermont Yankee Dry Cask Safety

By Guy Page By 2020, the spent fuel left over from all 42 years of Vermont Yankee’s operation is scheduled to be stored in huge steel “dry casks” on pads at the plant site in Vernon. Just how strong and reliable are Vermont Yankee’s “dry cask” spent nuclear fuel containers? Consider the following dry cask…

Should NRC spend time and money simplifying transition to decommissioning?

In the past three years, five nuclear reactors in the United States have permanently ceased operations and are in the process of transitioning to a decommissioning status. There is not a well defined process for making that transition and for applying appropriate, risk-informed regulations. As a consequence of that situation, the owner of each plant…

Vermont Yankee: Clean Kilowatt Cow That Deserves Saving

Vermont Yankee is a 650 MWe nuclear power plant in excellent physical condition. It has an operating license that is valid through 2031 and it is run by a well-trained operational staff. It supplies power to a grid where 60% of the capacity comes from natural gas that is delivered via a constrained pipeline system….

Westinghouse CEO: Decommissioning is part of the nuclear life cycle

Editor’s note: This guest post is in response to Westinghouse’s Roderick shifts resources from SMR to AP1000. By Danny Roderick I enjoy your blog and overall you get it right so I wanted to provide a little comment about growing our Westinghouse decommissioning business. Our fundamental business is growth in new units and servicing/fueling the…