Thank you both!
So, it sounds like the plants were built with excess storage capacity or perhaps storage was extended.
I think that when plants were originally built, it was not clear how long they could remain operational. I am not sure that the incentives for extending their use are wise, however. It must be hard to resist the gain of continued operation over money already spent.
I don’t think Gates will bring any wisdom to the table.
The plants were designed with capacity to store 10 years of spent nuclear fuel.
The Feds reneged on the deal to take possession of the spent fuel so the plants bought storage systems to store the spent fuel in what is called Dry Fuel Storage cask.
After 10 years the fuel is cool enough to store outside of a cooled pool of water.
There are a number of different designs of these cask but generally they all are stainless steel cans filled with an inert gas that keeps the fuel dry and cool. The can is inserted in to a reenforced concrete cask to protect the can.
Each reactor has coupons of the same steel inside that was used to fabricate reactor.
A coupon is removed and tested during each refueling to determine if any change has occurred that would compromise the reactor integrity.
Spent fuel eventually is removed from the pool. Instead of going to Nevada and being stored underground as previously planned, it’s now stored in a dry cask on site.