Since the beginning of the commercial nuclear electric power industry, it has been recognized that spent nuclear reactor fuel must be able to be readily removed from the reactor vessel in the plant and safely stored on-site. The need for adjacent ready storage is first for safety. In the event of an emergency, or necessary maintenance that requires the removal of irradiated fuel from the reactor vessel, cooled reserve storage capacity for the full amount of fuel from the reactor core must be available. Also, the uranium fuel in the reactor eventually reaches the point where its heat generation is below the planned efficiency for steam production which drives the turbines and generators. It then must be replaced by fresh uranium fuel, with the ''spent fuel'' elements being removed to a safe and convenient storage location near the reactor vessel. The federal nuclear waste repository program, even without delays in the current schedule of disposal becoming available in 2003, will result in a large percentage of the 111 existing operable commercial reactors requiring expansion of their spent fuel storage capacity. How that need can and will be met raises issues of both technology and policy that will be reviewed in this report.
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