The Coolest Things in the World

in the united states, the nuclear regulatory commission (NRC) has extremely high standards for radiation and general safety. between NRC, EPA, and OSHA regulations, nuclear power plants are incredibly safe both for workers and for the surrounding areas. NRC regulations for how much radiation dose a nuclear employee can receive in a year are very conservative to our understanding of how much radiation damages a person.

In terms of safety in the case of a nuclear accident, the design bases and the number of scenarios that a power plant has to consider and prove that they could handle and withstand in the worst case scenario is insane. every power plant has what’s called a Safety Analysis Report which is a massive document that considers all of the safety bases for the plant. The scenarios include worst case scenario loss of coolant accidents, environmental hazards, and missiles (such as a plane hitting the reactor). All of these scenarios needing to be proven that they could happen and the plant would not have a radiological impact are part of the reason the licensing process for a power plant takes so long.

As for waste, or spent fuel, there are two ways that US plants store it, both of which are on the plant’s site. These are dry and wet storage. After a fuel assembly is taken out of the reactor core it is placed in a massive pool called a spent fuel pool. Fuel assemblies are recycled for up to 3 cycles meaning that a single fuel assembly can be used for almost 5 years before it is no longer usable under current regulations. Dry storage is where these assemblies are placed when they will not go back into the reactor anymore. Dry storage is simply a large concrete cylinder where multiple fuel assemblies are placed, they use natural air flow to keep them cool. Other countries, such as France, recycle their fuel even further, where they take spent fuel assemblies and harvest the uranium and plutonium from them to re-enrich and use in future fuel assemblies, which cuts down the total “waste” for their reactors.

A semi-related note, at least from the plants i’ve seen, several nuclear plants also have designated areas around them dedicated to preserving the natural ecosystem and wildlife in the area which is super cool.