All used fuel at Duke Energy’s retired Crystal River Nuclear Plant in Citrus County, Fla., has been moved to dry storage, the utility announced recently.
The number of fuel assemblies removed from the plant’s spent fuel pool was not immediately known.
Crystal River was officially retired in 2013, four years after it went offline, and Duke the next year initiated development of its dry-cask storage facility. The storage pad was completed in May 2017, and transfer of spent fuel into dry casks began in June 2017. The final fuel assembly went into dry storage at 8:56 p.m. Friday, Jan. 12, according to a Duke press release.
The used fuel pool now is without any assemblies after more than four decades, the release says: “Now the used fuel assemblies – each about 14 feet long and 9 inches wide with 208 fuel rods – reside in steel canisters in 39 concrete horizontal storage modules atop a berm that is about 30 feet above sea level.”
Crystal River is in SAFSTOR mode, under which it will maintained and monitored for up to 60 years before active decommissioning begins. Duke Energy anticipates decommissioning will cost $1.18 billion in 2013 dollars.
More immediately, Duke decommissioning personnel will disengage some gear, process roughly 400,000 gallons of fuel pool water, and ship non-fuel radiological parts off-site, according to the release.
