More than 900 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel sits in a swimming-pool-like enclosure and in 22 giant steel casks at North Anna Power Station.
A byproduct of nuclear fission at North Anna's two nearby reactors, used fuel is--by far--the most potentially dangerous material at the Louisa County plant in Fredericksburg's back yard. It remains deadly for thousands of years.
How well it is protected in a post-9/11 world, and the prospect of much more of it piling up here and at the nation's 103 commercial power reactors, has come into sharp focus in recent weeks as two government reports have raised questions about its storage and protection.
It has become an issue locally because Dominion power--owner of the North Anna plant--has an application to add up to two more reactors wending its way through the regulatory process. More reactors would mean the storage of many more tons of spent fuel.
Earlier this month the National Academy of Sciences recommended a plant-by-plant review of the storage pools at nuclear plants, suggesting that they may be vulnerable to terrorist attack.
On Monday, the Government Accountability Office found that some utilities have not kept close enough track of spent fuel.
The GAO report questioned oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and said the materials "could be diverted or stolen and used maliciously."
The report was requested last year by Vermont's two senators following news that spent fuel had been reported missing at the Vermont Yankee plant. It was later found in the spent-fuel pool, but not where records said it was supposed to be.
Spent fuel also was reported missing from the Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut in 2000 and from the Humboldt Bay plant in California last year. Millstone is owned by Dominion power, which has accounted for all the spent fuel at its North Anna and Surry plants in Virginia.
Radioactive issues"These facilities are very secure," said Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations. He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "already did an assessment of individual [plant] sites and made recommendations for everybody to implement, and we are in full compliance with those orders."
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Zuercher said, security has been ramped up, and the chance of a terrorists attacking the fuel pool or the casks is remote.
"A lot of money has been spent [on security] by Dominion since 9/11, but we believe the sites were very secure before 9/11."
Zuercher says just how and where the security has been beefed up is a secret, for obvious reasons.
But he said: "We have increased our security force. We have more officers and we have put more sophisticated surveillance equipment in that allows us to keep watch on all of the property."
Zuercher said that prior to 9/11, security was focused on the secure area of the plant containing the reactors, spent-fuel pool and storage casks.
"Since then, security has been enhanced to cover the whole [plant] site."
Environmental groups opposing additional reactors at North Anna say the protection of the spent fuel is a legitimate concern and that expansion would present a more tempting target to terrorists.
In a public hearing in February in Louisa on environmental aspects of Dominion's early site-permit application, spent fuel was addressed by a number of speakers.
One of them was Sue Chase, who lives in Albemarle County, about 50 miles from North Anna.
"Who can assure us that a plant won't be bombed, invaded or hit by a plane and that the fuel rods won't be exposed, resulting in a devastating fire? No one."
Fueling the debate
Every 18 months, North Anna's two reactors must be shut down and partially refueled. Sixty-four spent fuel assemblies are typically removed from each reactor core. Each reactor has 157 assemblies.
The assemblies--rectangular modules packed with uranium-pellet-filled tubes--are lifted from the reactor and submerged in what looks like an industrial-size indoor swimming pool. Twenty-seven feet of water, infused with neutron-absorbing boron, protects workers in the room from radiation.
The pool sits between North Anna's two reactors. The spent fuel assemblies are submerged, where they will stay for at least five years to cool.
After that, they are placed in helium-filled steel casks, which are decontaminated and moved to the storage area outside. Helium is an inert gas that helps transfer heat to the outside of the casks, each of which holds 32 fuel assemblies. The gas is easy to detect if there's a container leak.
Twenty-two of the 115-ton storage containers sit on concrete pads in a fenced, secure enclosure at North Anna. By 2010, there could be 36.
Vulnerable or well protected?Dominion recently received permission from the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to add another cask-storage pad. New casks will be better protected--encased in reinforced-concrete containers.
The board didn't go along with a Planning Commission recommendation that a berm be added to the fenced area around the casks to improve security from a possible shoulder-fired-missile attack.
Dominion, however, was asked to study a berm.
Critics say the pool and the casks are vulnerable, even if the risk is remote.
The academy report said the spent-fuel pool, and others like it in 31 states, could be compromised by a suicide aircraft or high-explosive attack, exposing the assemblies and unleashing an uncontrollable fire and large amounts of radiation.
The NRC has concluded release from such a fire would be "extremely low," but the agency still advised reactor operators to consider reconfiguring the fuel assemblies in the pools.
NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz, addressing the academy report in a March letter to lawmakers, said that the spent-fuel storage systems are safe and secure and that some of the panel's recommendations lacked technical merit.
"Today, spent fuel is better protected than ever," he wrote.
Threat from the air
Jerry Rosenthal, president of Concerned Citizens of Louisa and a member of the People's Alliance for Clean Energy, formed to oppose the North Anna expansion, scoffs at the notion.
"They are protected very well from ground attack, or certain types of attack. Not from above. The pool is covered by a [thin steel] building and the casks are covered by nothing."
"We have video of [military] TOW missiles blowing holes in the casks," he said, adding, "Seven attorneys general around the U.S. have recommended putting towers and wire barriers above dry casks and pools for further protection from air attack."
North Anna added cask storage in 1998 when its spent-fuel pool became full. About a fourth of nuclear power plants now have both pools and casks.
A bigger issue and a long-term concern for area residents, Rosenthal said, is the availability of a permanent repository for the spent fuel piling up at the nation's nuclear reactors. A repository was to open under Yucca Mountain, Nev., by 2010, but that project has been plagued by delays.
"It looks like [opening] Yucca is unlikely, certainly in the near future," he said, meaning that, if two more reactors were added at North Anna, "we'd be doubling the amount of spent fuelassuming all the waste stays here."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com