We are pleased to announce the successful loading this fall of our 2,000th spent fuel dry storage system, which occurred as a part of the ongoing campaign at Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) facility. Holtec’s HI-STORM dry storage systems have been in service at ANO since 2003. ANO utilizes the MPC-37 multi-purpose canister, each containing 37 PWR fuel assemblies featuring a prismatic basket made entirely of Holtec’s patented Metamic-HT material in an egg-crate configuration, which is notable for its superb heat rejection, reactivity control and structural strength capabilities.
“We appreciate the strong partnership that we at Entergy have with Holtec. Arkansas Nuclear One is an important facility for our company, the industry, the state of Arkansas and the Russellville community, and having the 2,000th spent fuel dry storage system is a key milestone for our continued safe, secure and reliable operations,” says Entergy’s Chief Nuclear Officer, Ms. Kimberly Cook-Nelson.
The 2000th cask is an important milestone for Holtec’s used fuel management program, which has been embraced by 149 nuclear units around the world. Each storage system is customized to maximize the safety metrics for its host site. Thus, we have casks deployed in a physically constrained configuration at sites with severe postulated earthquakes (over 1 g horizontal). Most are arrayed outdoors but some are housed in a sheltered enclosure. Most feature the standard single wall canister deemed to be leak-tight by the USNRC and others feature the double wall canister (based on a Holtec patent) to drive the probability of leakage to a fraction of the infinitesimal levels acceptable to the Regulator. Some are stored in impenetrable subterranean storage cavities. In every case, maximizing every safety metric of the storage system is our paramount consideration.
“We are grateful for the stout support that our company continues to receive from our clients that now number 149 nuclear reactors in 14 countries. We are proud to observe that ours is the only dry storage program where every canister is transportable, which means Holtec’s customers will not face the cost and dose to repackage their fuel for off-site transport. We have also licensed a consolidated interim storage facility in New Mexico which beckons US government action to aggregate 75 storage sites into one,” says P.K. Chaudhary, SVP in Holtec’s Nuclear Power Division.
Over 200 patents safeguard Holtec’s dry storage innovations which are rendered into physical embodiments at our three nuclear pedigree manufacturing plants in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some well-known Holtec innovations and pioneering achievements in dry storage include the industry’s first multi-purpose canister, the first dual purpose metal cask, the first transport cask qualified for high burn-up and mixed-oxide fuel, the first double wall canister, the first portable robotic MPC welder and the first application of laser peening to vastly extend a canister’s service life in challenging (such as marine) environments.
You must be logged in to post a comment.