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Spent fuel rod consolidation at Prairie Island

Conference · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA)
OSTI ID:5490207
Northern States Power (NSP) has recently completed a demonstration of spent fuel rod consolidation at its Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant (PI). This demonstration involved dismantling 36 fuel assemblies and placing their fuel rods into 18 canisters, each one the size of a single fuel assembly. With the current fuel management strategy at PI, the existing storage space will be exhausted by 1994 to 1995. Because of the timetable for the federal waste disposal program, PI will need a minimum of 5 yr of additional interim spent-fuel storage capacity. Several technologies available to provide this interim capacity are being evaluated. As part of this evaluation, it was decided to perform a demonstration of the Westinghouse consolidation process. The scope of work performed during the consolidation demonstration involved dismantling the fuel assemblies and placing the rods from two assemblies into a storage canister the size of one fuel assembly. The empty cages were placed back into the storage racks for later processing. The top and bottom nozzles were placed in stacks of eight or ten and also stored in the spent-fuel racks for future disposal.
OSTI ID:
5490207
Report Number(s):
CONF-880601--
Conference Information:
Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA) Journal Volume: 56
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English