February 23, 2005
Sacramento Business Journal
After looking for them for seven months, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says it may have found what remains of three missing nuclear fuel rods from its Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant near Eureka in Northern California.
The three rods, which were 18 inches in length when they were taken out of service, apparently have been sitting at the bottom of the plant's used fuel pool since the 1960s.
But because they've been damaged by other used rods piled on top of them over the years, PG&E isn't claiming they've really been found.
"The results of the investigation to date, while inconclusive, support our original belief that the segments are either in our possession in the used fuel pool or were shipped offsite to a licensed nuclear waste facility," says Greg Rueger, senior vice president for generation and chief nuclear officer, in a written statement. "Based on an independent expert analysis of the fuel fragments we have recovered from the used fuel pool, it is most likely that we have the cut fuel rod segments in our possession. Unfortunately, their condition after 40 years of being stored under other components in the pool makes positive identification extremely difficult."
In a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made public Wednesday, the utility also says security systems and procedures in place at the power plant were sufficient to detect and prevent attempted theft of the rods by either an internal or external party.
"Successful theft or diversion of the fuel rod segments would present challenges to the party responsible that are technically complex, risky, expensive, and potentially life-threatening because the fuel is highly radioactive," PG&E says. "In addition, the fuel rod segments are of insufficient quality and quantity to construct an effective radiological dispersion device (dirty bomb) or a nuclear weapon."
The search for the rods began in June 2004 when the utility reported to the NRC the discovery of conflicting records on the location of three, 18-inch long segments. The records indicated that the segments were either stored in the used fuel pool in 1968 or were shipped to a licensed nuclear waste facility in 1969.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is California's largest utility and supplies power and fuel to much of Greater Sacramento. It is a unit of PG&E Corp. (NYSE: PCG) of San Francisco.
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