United States interim storage

{
  "id": "MLC-T-ENV-029138",
  "term": "United States interim storage",
  "field": "Environment",
  "term_source": "United States Interim Storage",
  "definition": "After use in the reactor, fuel assemblies become highly radioactive and must be removed and stored under water at the reactor site in a spent fuel pool for several years. Even though the fission reaction has stopped, the spent fuel continues to give off heat from the decay of the radioactive elements that were created when the uranium atoms were split apart. The water in the pool serves to both cool the fuel and block the release of radiation. From 1968 through June 2013, 241,468 fuel assemblies had been discharged and stored at 118 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States. Within a few years, the spent fuel cools in the pool and may be moved to a dry cask storage container at the power plant site. An increasing number of reactor operators now store their older spent fuel in these special outdoor concrete or steel containers with air cooling. The final step in the nuclear fuel cycle is the collection of spent fuel assemblies from the interim storage sites for final disposition in a permanent underground repository. The United States currently has no permanent underground repository for high-level nuclear waste.",
  "subject": "Built environments",
  "references": [
    "EPA EV-Built Environments-Energy Generation"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/environment/united-states-interim-storage/"
}