Nuclear power plants use much less fuel than any other thermal power plant – multiple orders of magnitude less – meaning it creates much less waste. But “much less” isn’t the same as none, as Vermont knows.
Compass Vermont, an independent news source, has a nice piece (here it is) noting that the former Vermont Yankee plant near Brattleboro on the Connecticut River is now completely decommissioned. All the buildings are torn down and removed, with the site ready to be replaced by a proposed utility-scale battery site to make use of its grid connection.
Except not quite all the buildings are gone. One remains, holding 58 steel-and-concrete casks, each about 20 feet tall, filled with used fuel rods and reactor parts too radioactive for low-level waste disposal. It’s been there since last of the fuel left the plant’s cooling pool for the casks eight years ago – the plant itself shut in 2014 – and will be there for many years to come.
In New Hampshire, Seabrook Station has something like a million pounds, and growing, of similar waste stored in casks. It produces about 40,000 pounds of it each year, plus a smaller amount of radioactive objects.
Eventually all this radioactive waste is supposed to go into a permanent federal disposal site, should such a thing ever be created. I’ve been hearing about such plans for most of my adult life but nobody wants to host it, so don’t hold your breath.
In the meantime, the small building is a reminder of the major drawback of nuclear power. As long as it stays intact, though, it’s really not much of a drawback. Fortunately southern Vermont doesn’t get many earthquakes.
