Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings, one of which is depicted in this photo that dates from the time of Zion, Illinois' founding. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:
Transcript
The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:
Illinois’ Zion nuclear power plant hasn’t produced electricity for eleven years.
It’s so close to Lake Michigan you can smell the beach. But other than that, the empty
parking lots and office space make the place seem dead.
The plant manager says that’s not the case.
“I think a lot of people have a vision of us playing cards or swinging our golf clubs
on the beach. I would say we’ve been extremely busy the entire time.”
Ron Schuster says he and other workers remove hazards from the station, like diesel fuel
and electrical equipment.
But one hazard is still here: the spent nuclear fuel.
And when the power plant is dismantled, that radioactive waste will be put in new
containers.
They’re concrete casks.
Schuster: “A cask is approximately fifteen feet tall. It looks like a small silo and
there is no radiation exposure on the outside of these things.”
Allee: “So from this office window, can we see where the casks might go?”
Schuster: “We’ve got four spots on this site that have been at least looked at. When
it comes time to actually put the fuel in dry-cask storage it will be a huge structure,
about as big as a football field.”
Schuster’s confident this will be a simple and safe solution.
Not everyone in Zion so convinced.
“This cask issue, just sitting on the site was never appealing to me.”
Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings close to the power plant.
In other towns with spent-fuel casks, nuclear power plants sometimes get turned into non-
nuclear power plants or into parks.
But Delisle and the city of Zion are hoping to do more – maybe build new commercial
buildings or even homes.
Delisle says having concrete containers full of radioactive waste left on-site could make
their work harder.
“So, I hope the casks are relocated somewhere else. Having them next to a
population of about 23,000 people is probably not a great place for it to be.”
Other communities are in the same position – they’ll be left with spent fuel casks even if
their dead nuclear plants get torn down.
There’s a simple reason.
“We don’t really have a final resting spot for these casks at the moment.”
Dave Lochbaum is with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.
“The federal government is way behind schedule providing a repository for high-
level waste.”
Lochbaum says the government has one storage place in mind.
It’s inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but that’s still just being studied.
Power companies can sometimes move spent fuel to other plants or facilities.
But Lochbaum says politically, that just won’t fly.
“There’s no revenue from electricity being generated, so it’s a hard sell to go to a
community and say we’d like to have you store spent fuel for decades into the
future. The easiest way out is to leave it where it is, because those communities have
already accepted that fate.”
Well, cities like Zion say they didn’t accept this exact fate.
They bought into nuclear power for jobs and property taxes – they didn’t count on
babysitting spent fuel waste.
But that’s likely to happen, because the government won’t take it. The power companies
won’t dare move it, and the towns can’t move themselves away.
For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.