Feinstein pushes for quicker move to dry cask storage

摘要

Sen.Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), chair of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, has asked Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to consider immediate reforms to the storage of used nuclear fuel at commercial reactors in the United States. In a letter dated April 8, Feinstein urged that the NRC establish regulations that would implement "a more rapid shift of spent fuel to dry casks." She stated her concern that current NRC policies allow excessive reracking and densification of radioactive fuel within spent fuel pools. "In fact," she wrote, "there are examples in the U.S. where nuclear fuel rods have been stored in spent fuel pools for decades."