Word: reactors
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...this day, Galatis wanted to know about a routine refueling operation at the Millstone Unit 1 nuclear plant in Waterford, Connecticut. Every 18 months the reactor is shut down so the fuel rods that make up its core can be replaced; the old rods, radioactive and 250 degrees F hot, are moved into a 40-ft.-deep body of water called the spent-fuel pool, where they are placed in racks alongside thousands of other, older rods. Because the Federal Government has never created a storage site for high-level radioactive waste, fuel pools in nuclear plants across the country...
AFTER GALATIS FILED HIS PETITION, ON AUG. 21, he found himself in many of New England's newspapers. As citizens' groups called meetings, Northeast and the NRC assured everyone that the full-core off-load was a common practice that enhanced safety for maintenance workers inside the empty reactor vessel. "We've been aware of how they off-loaded the full core," NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci told one paper. "We could have stopped them earlier...
...told Galatis--and has since repeated the account to TIME--that he saw work crews racing to see who could move fuel rods the fastest. The competition, he said, tripped radiation alarms and overheated the fuel pool. Reynolds' job was to remove the big bolts that hold the reactor head in place. Sometimes, he said, he was told to remove them so soon after shutdown that the heat melted his protective plastic booties...
Galatis and Hadley had been waiting two months for a reply to their petition to deny Northeast's amendment. Finally, on Oct. 26, a letter from William Russell, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, informed them that their petition was "outside of the scope" of the applicable regulatory subchapter. Two weeks later, the NRC granted Northeast's amendment. Millstone started moving fuel the next morning...
...When I started in the industry, 20 years ago," Betancourt says, "spent fuel was considered the ass end of the fuel cycle. No one wanted to touch it. Everyone wanted to be on the sexy side, inside the reactor vessel, where the action and danger were. No one noticed fuel pools until we started running out of room in them...