Four more casks on the pad

Used fuel leaves a reactor hot, in every sense, and spends its first years in a deep pool of water inside the fuel building, where it cools and its radioactivity falls steeply. Once it has cooled enough, it is sealed inside a welded steel canister, the canister is set inside a concrete cask, and the cask is moved to the pad: a reinforced slab inside the protected area, in view of the security posts.

This summer's campaign loaded four casks from the Unit 1 pool over six weeks, with the plant at full power throughout. The pad now holds 28 casks, each watched by temperature and radiation monitors and inspected on a schedule set by the federal regulators whose resident inspectors observed the loading.

A cask gives off less radiation at its surface than a person receives on a long flight, and the pad's boundary dose is a small fraction of what the South Coast receives from the sun and the rocks in a year. The pad is sized for the life of both units.

The used fuel pad is part of the plant tour. Read more on the station page.

Questions about this notice go to the Communications & Community office, (696) 412-0540, community@oregonnuclear.com. All notices.