GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Detailed explanation-1: -Spent nuclear fuel is stored in water-filled ponds for several years after removal from the reactor. The water becomes contaminated because there is a large amount of particulate matter on the surface of fuel elements and because there are leakages of fission products through the fuel element cladding.

Detailed explanation-2: -The nation’s spent nuclear fuel is initially stored in steel-lined concrete pools surrounded by water. It’s later removed from the pools and placed into dry storage casks that are made of steel and concrete or other materials used for protective shielding.

Detailed explanation-3: -Dry cask storage allows spent fuel that has already been cooled in the spent fuel pool for several years to be surrounded by inert gas inside a container called a cask. The casks are typically steel cylinders that are either welded or bolted closed. The steel cylinder provides containment of the spent fuel.

Detailed explanation-4: -Spent fuel that has been removed from a reactor is ordinarily stored in a water-filled spent fuel pool for a year or more (in some sites 10 to 20 years) in order to cool it and provide shielding from its radioactivity.

Detailed explanation-5: -They are kept on racks in the pool, submerged in more than twenty feet of water, and water is continuously circulated to draw heat away from the rods and keep them at a safe temperature. Because no permanent repository for spent fuel exists in the United States, reactor owners have kept spent fuel at the reactor sites.