Spent fuel management in the United States of America

Spent fuel inventories in the USA exceed 12,000 t HM, and are increasing at a rate in excess of 1300 t per year. In the absence of reprocessing, these inventories are being stored in existing reactor fuel pools. Where initial pool storage capacity was insufficient, and structural and seismic considerations permitted, high density storage racks have been installed to increase pool storage capacity. In addition, a limited amount of spent fuel transshipment has occurred to other reactors within some utility systems where storage space was available. For the next few years there are not reactors in the United States whose continued operation is threatened because spent fuel storage space is not available or otherwise obtainable, using currently viable storage technologies. Future plans for spent fuel management, as established by US law, call for continued utility management of their spent fuel until a Federal repository or Monitored Retrievable Storage Facility (MRS) is established. When one of these Federal facilities becomes available, high-level waste or spent fuel can be transferred to it and become a Federal responsibility. The spent fuel management national programme and progress in this field are presented. (author)