A group of Democratic House lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation aimed at requiring the expeditious removal of spent nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools to dry cask storage. Reps. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Bill Keating (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) submitted the “Dry Cask Storage Act” (H.R. 3587), which largely resembles a bill introduced in the Senate earlier this year. The bill would require nuclear operators to move spent fuel to dry cask storage within seven and a half years, and those that do not comply must expand their emergency planning zone out to 50 miles. “Putting spent fuel into cooling pools is necessary in the short-term, but nuclear facilities are piling too much fuel into these pools for too long in order to delay more costly moves toward long-term storage,” Engel said in a statement. “I am troubled by the crowded storage pools I’ve seen at Indian Point, where radioactive waste is so concentrated that if disaster struck, large amounts of radioactive material could be released just 24 miles from New York City. Dry cask storage isolates smaller, less dangerous amounts of radioactive waste inside units that are less vulnerable to disruptive events. It’s time America’s nuclear plants remove the unnecessary risk they are posing to nearby people and environments by moving cooled fuel rods out of pools and into dry casks.”
House Lawmakers Introduce Dry Cask Storage Bill
House Energy panel plans to look at DOE’s Nuclear Lifecycle centers
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’’s Energy subcommittee plans a Tuesday hearing on the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses that would co-locate fuel cycle activities with advanced nuclear energy projects. Announced Sept. 8, the hearing, titled: “Nuclear Spent Fuel Policy: Examining Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses”, will be held Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern […]