The resulting 2005 report safety and security of commercial spent nuclear fuel storage concluded that an attack which partially or completely drains a plant s spent fuel pool might be. Spent nuclear fuel occasionally called used nuclear fuel is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor usually at a nuclear power plant it is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and depending on its point along the nuclear fuel cycle it may have considerably different isotopic constituents. When located outside the containment building the two areas are connected by a fuel transfer system which carries the fuel.
Spent fuel pool sfp is storage pool for spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors spent fuel pool may be located inside the containment building or inside the fuel building outside the containment building. Over time as the spent fuel is stored in the pool it becomes cooler as the radioactivity decays away. Plant personnel move the spent fuel underwater from the reactor to the pool.
In nuclear power plants spent nuclear fuel is usually stored underwater in the spent fuel pool on the plant. According to nuclear plant safety specialists the chances of criticality in a spent fuel pool are very small usually avoided by the dispersal of the fuel assemblies inclusion of a neutron absorber in the storage racks and overall by the fact that the spent fuel has too low an enrichment level to self sustain a fission reaction. Over time as the spent fuel is stored in the pool it becomes cooler as the radioactivity decays away.
Plant personnel move the spent fuel underwater from the reactor to the pool. In nuclear power plants spent nuclear fuel is usually stored underwater in the spent fuel pool on the plant.
