Are spent fuel rods cooling pools discharging radioactive water (tritium) into the environment? Since the spent fuel rods can still meltdown after 10 years in the cooling pools if the water is removed.

 

“They point to a 2003 research paper that was coauthored by Macfarlane when she was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher. That paper warned that if the cooling water were to leak out of a damaged storage pool, a fire would result, causing radioactivity to be released that could rival that from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.” (J. Johnson).

 

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“Ten years after removal of spent fuel from a reactor, the radiation dose 1 meter away from a typical spent fuel assembly exceeds 20,000 rems per hour. A dose of 5,000 rems would be expected to cause immediate incapacitation and death within one week.” (NRC, 2002).

Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NUREG/BR-0216, Rev. 2. May 2002.

4 hours ago, lightforyoou said:

Are spent fuel rods cooling pools discharging radioactive water (tritium) into the environment?

Doubtful. Tritium is an isotope we want more of rather than less of. It is/will be used in fusion reactors.

4 hours ago, lightforyoou said:

Since the spent fuel rods can still meltdown after 10 years in the cooling pools if the water is removed.

..in capitalism everything is a business.. if you can get a job done in 10 years, you'll get it done and have a big payday, instead of getting it done in 1m and having less..

Spent nuclear fuel rods can still be useful, so they keep them that way for years and make money from it..

 

10 hours ago, lightforyoou said:

Are spent fuel rods cooling pools discharging radioactive water (tritium) into the environment?

I’m not sure how tritium would be formed from fuel rods in a cooling pool. I think the concern would be damage to the control rods and contamination by fission products. 

Just now, swansont said:

I’m not sure how tritium would be formed from fuel rods in a cooling pool.

A free neutron from Uranium hitting Deuterium from heavy water?

(just guessing the OP's way of thinking)

 

6 minutes ago, Sensei said:

A free neutron from Uranium hitting Deuterium from heavy water?

(just guessing the OP's way of thinking)

 

The neutrons would have to be from fission, which isn’t happening very often, and there isn’t much heavy water.