Recently, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to halt the construction of the ‘Away From Reactor’ (AFR) facility at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) site for storing nuclear waste.
Opposition from village panchayat
- The Kudankulam Village Panchayat, under which the project site falls, has also passed a resolution against setting up the facility.
- They have cited a radioactive threat to the region . The ward members said the KKNPP was operating 2X1,000 MWe nuclear reactors, besides constructing four more reactors with a similar capacity.
- Since the KKNPP administration, for the first time in the country, had commenced excavation work at the site for building the AFR facility for permanently storing the spent fuel generated in the reactors, it would pose a serious threat to the people living in this region over the next 70 crore years.
Away From Reactor (AFR)
- The scheme for the storage of spent fuel in a nuclear power plant was two-fold — one facility is located within the reactor building/service building, generally known as the spent fuel storage pool/bay, and the other is located away from the reactor, called the Away From Reactor (AFR) Spent Fuel Storage Facility, but within the plant’s premises.
- The spent fuel storage pool inside the reactor building has a limited capacity and is used for immediate storage of the spent fuel removed from the reactor during refuelling.
- The fuel remains in the pool initially for a few years for it to be cooled sufficiently before it is shifted to the facility.
- The AFR Spent Fuel Storage Facility is functionally similar to the ‘Spent Fuel Pool’ inside the reactor building, except in terms of capacity.
(Source: The Hindu)
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