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A: There is radiation in nature and radiation that is human-made. Radiation in nature comes from the sun and the earth. Even human bodies contain some natural radiation. Some people explain radiation like a campfire. Used fuel is like the fire. Fire is the source of heat. Nuclear fuel is the source of radiation. Getting too near the fire's heat can be dangerous. Too much radiation can be harmful, too. If ash from the campfire gets on your clothes, it stays on you when you leave the fire. With nuclear materials, this is called contamination. The spent fuel at this facility will be sealed in steel containers. The containers will be inside thick concrete storage containers. Steel and concrete cut down on radiation that comes from spent fuel. None of the radioactive fuel will contaminate people or animals. And none will be accidentally carried away from the site. With a campfire, moving away from the fire means you feel less heat. If you move behind a large rock, you get even more protection from the heat. In the same way, the spent fuel storage facility will be designed and operated to provide protection from radiation. Radiation, like fire, can be dangerous. Strict rules will see that radiation is carefully controlled at the storage site, so people, animals and the environment are not harmed. Q: How will workers and visitors be protected from radiation at the storage facility? A: There are three ways to keep radiation exposure low. They are time, distance, and shielding. Like a campfire, if you stand by it for a long time, you can get very warm. So, with radiation, workers plan their work to spend the least amount of time near the source of radiation. Also, like the campfire, if you move away from a source of radiation its effect on you drops off just like the heat from the fire gets less as you move away from it. Workers will only get near the source of radiation when necessary. They often will use machines that allow the workers to stay at a distance. Shielding is very important. Thick concrete and steel cause a big drop in radiation. The spent fuel canisters and storage casks, and the storage site, will be built to provide very good shielding for workers and visitors. The site will follow strict radiation rules from the U.S. government just like other nuclear sites do. All radiation exposure to workers and visitors will be measured and careful records kept so each person can know how much exposure, if any, he or she has had. Q: Isn't the PFS facility a radiological risk to everyone around it? A: The PFS spent fuel storage facility has been designed and will be built on the "start clean/stay clean" philosophy. Start clean/stay clean ensures that there will be minimal radioactive waste generated. PFS will operate the facility to preclude generating liquid radioactive waste. The very nature of the facility - spent fuel rods stored in dry canisters - protects against the possibility of a liquid contaminated spill. Remember that spent fuel is neither liquid nor gas, but rather, hard ceramic pellets that cannot leak from the storage canisters. The pellets, which are about a half inch long and about the same diameter as a pencil, are incapable of exploding and releasing contamination into the air. There are no liquids inside the canisters; the inside environment is inert helium. Each canister is double seal-welded to prevent any liquids from entering. Operation of the PFS site will have no radiological effects on existing groundwater quality. The site may generate small amounts of dry, low-level solid radioactive waste. These wastes will be immediately collected, labeled, and packaged in NRC-approved containers. They will then be removed from the PFS site and taken to a low-level waste disposal facility. Q: If one storage cask gives off even a small amount of radiation, won't the cumulative amount of radiation from 4,000 casks be dangerous? A: No. The NRC will require constant monitoring of different parts of the facility to be sure that radiation doses do not exceed safe levels as defined in federal regulations. For example, at the fence surrounding the outside buffer zone of the facility, radiation may not exceed 25 millirems per year. That's about the same dose you would receive in one chest x-ray. By comparison, the normal background radiation in this part of Utah is about 350-400 millirems per year. The NRC standard must be met whether there is one or 4,000 casks stored there. The NRC also sets a standard for radiation doses that might be received in any credible accident scenario. The standard says that total exposure due to the accident cannot exceed five rems, a level at which there would be no ill effects. Scientists at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan have studied survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb and concluded that radiation doses would have to exceed 65 times the normal background radiation before there would be any harmful effects.
Q: Are there risks of radiation leakage? A: Experience tells us there is virtually no risk of leakage. Dry storage of spent nuclear fuel is already in use at more than 16 utility sites in the U.S., and spent fuel has been safely shipped for more than 40 years. Nonetheless, the shipping and storage containers to be used by PFS will be the subject of an extensive three-year NRC review. In the PFS shipping cask, spent fuel rods are sealed in a stainless steel canister. The canister is then placed in a cylindrical overpack consisting of an inner steel shell, intermediate steel shells for neutron shielding, and an outer steel shell. The cask measures about eight feet in diameter and 17 feet in length. The loaded shipping casks weigh approximately 125 tons. Shipping cask designs are tested rigorously before they are approved by the NRC. They have been crash tested on trucks going 60 mph and 88 mph into a 700-ton concrete wall. They have been broadsided by a 120-ton locomotive traveling at 80 mph, they have been dropped from 30 feet onto extremely hard ground and onto hardened steel spikes. They have also been burned in a pool of aviation fuel for an hour and a half at temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. In all cases, the casks proved to protect their contents. These casks are designed to withstand tornadoes, lightening strikes, floods, and sabotage without releasing any radioactivity. The facility and its processes are designed with a "start clean/stay clean" philosophy that results in little or no contamination so that the site may be used for other purposes when the storage facility is no longer needed.
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