Nuclear Master is worrying about its own mess

United State Nuclear plant in storage crisis

The Associated Press
FRENCHTOWN TOWNSHIP, MICH.

DTE Energy Co. faces a deadline for the amounting problem of storing spent nuclear fuel from its Fermi 2 reactor in Southeastern Michigan. In about three years, the detroit-based utility will run out of room in fuel storage pool next to the reactor vessel and expects it will have to store the fuel bundles on the Fermi plant's ground in heavy concrete and steel casks designed to contain the radiation.

" we have received some bids from a number vendors and those are under evaluation," DTE spokesman John Austerberry told The Monroe Evening News. " we are also looking at the option of forming alliances with other plants to obtain the storage containers."

Storage of spent nuclear fuel has bee a controversial issue at plants across the country due to environmental and security concerns. DTE will begin a $9 million "re-racking" of Fermi's fuel pool this month, allowing a tighter pack of the spent fuel assemblies to extend the pool's capacity to 2010. It will be the second times the plant has re-racked the pool.

The federal government initially vowed to take used fuel off the hands of utilities with nuclear plant and store in deep underground in Nuvada's Yuca Mountain. But that plan is years behind schedule, due to planning, political and safety concerns.

DTE officials have said that because of buildup of waste at other nuclear plants, the chances of any Fermi's waste ever being transported to Yuca Mountain are slim. Spent fuel already is stored in casks at Consumers Energy's Big Rock Plant near Charlevoix, the Palisates plant near South Haven and more than two dozen other locations around the country.

CUT IN EMISSIONS DTE Energy Co. is spending more than US$1 billion on its Monroe power plant as part of a five-year effort to comply with federal rules to reduce emissions. The Detroit- based utility, which own Detroit Edison and Michigan Consolidated Gas will install two flue gas desulfurization units, or scrubbers, and a selective catalytic reduction unit.

The new equipment will be able to control up to 97 per cent of sulfur dioxide emissions and 80 per cent of mercury emissions at facility. The coal-fired plant, the utility's largest, has already seen 63 percent drop in emissions of sulfur dioxide, an irritant to human respiratory system.

Emissions of nitrogen oxide, which contributes to acid rain, smog and global warming, have fallen 56 percent. " we have been doing a lot in this area, and it is really getting much better," Skiles Boyd, DTE's vice president of environmental management and resources, told the Detroit Free Press for a Monday story.

The project will put the facility ahead of federal mandates under the Clean Air Interstate Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule that start in 2015.