Radwaste from US reactor will eventually be stored at planned repository
Italy’s state nuclear waste management company Sogin has started work to re-encapsulate 64 nuclear fuel elements that have been in the storage pool at Itrec (Impianto di Trattamento e Rifabbricazione Elementi Combustibile), a former nuclear fuel reprocessing and research plant in Rotondella, southern Italy.
The fuel elements are from the experimental Elk River reactor in the US state of Minnesota.
Between 1968 and 1970, 84 irradiated uranium-thorium fuel elements were shipped from Elk River to Italy.
It is the only foreign nuclear fuel remaining in Italy. Due to its unique composition, Sogin is moving the fuel into dry storage casks pending its transfer to a future national repository.
The processing of the Elk River fuel resulted in about three cubic meters of liquid uranium-thorium solution. Managing and storing this waste has been an ongoing endeavour for Italy, as has finding a long-term solution to store the remaining 64 Elk River fuel elements at the Itrec site.
The spent fuel from Elk River was sent to Italy as part of an international joint scientific programme to research the thorium-uranium nuclear fuel cycle.
The operation now underway involves transferring each fuel element into containers suitable for insertion into two special casks already onsite. The two casks will in turn be stored in the site’s temporary storage facility pending their transfer to the planned repository.
Sogin said the project marks a significant milestone in the management of the fuel elements – a key objective of the decommissioning programme for the Itrec plant.
The re-encapsulation operations are scheduled to be completed by the middle of next year.
The Elk River reactor was a pioneering 22-MW boiling water reactor operated by the Rural Cooperative Power Association. Constructed in 1959 and operated from 1964 to 1968, it was designed to test thorium fuel cycles. It was fully dismantled and decommissioned in the early 1970s.
