- 22 -
radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. The nuclear waste act
provided that persons owning and operating civilian nuclear power
reactors were primarily responsible for providing interim storage
of spent nuclear fuel.
Accordingly, FPL was required to store spent nuclear fuel
until 1998; as a result, FPL needed to expand its on-site spent
fuel rack system at each of its nuclear generating plants. As of
January 7, 1983, the enactment date of the nuclear waste act, FPL
knew the amount of spent fuel it would need to store and the
design of the expanded spent fuel rack systems at St. Lucie and
Turkey Point.
FPL removed spent nuclear fuel from the reactor and
transferred it via the fuel transfer system to a containment
building, using a series of underwater tunnels. The spent fuel
was then transferred from the containment building to the fuel
handling building.
The spent fuel rack system at each of FPL’s nuclear
generating plants consisted of two large pools of water,
approximately 40 feet deep, with metal storage racks at the
bottom. Each pool and system of racks was located proximately to
one of the two nuclear reactors, which were located side by side.
Because FPL had additional space in the pools, it expanded its
storage facilities by increasing the number of storage racks in
the pool. FPL designed its system so that each pool could
Page: Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011