Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant

They started looking into the dry cask method in the 70s, and I think in 86 –

in the United States at the Surrey Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia is where we had our first dry storage facility.

And these casks are about 20 feet tall, eight feet in diameter, weigh about 100 tons.

And in that cask is several dozen of those fuel assemblies.

And again, those fuel assemblies are made up of

the individual fuel rods that are holding the pellets.

So several dozen of those stack together, sealed inside a canister, they bolt it shut, suck out the air and replace it with inert gas, and then that steel canister is surrounded by a thick concrete wall and they throw it out back.

Yeah, for sure.

Right now, the U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, is looking at applications for a couple of larger storage sites here in the U.S.

for those dry casts, one in New Mexico and one in Texas.

These are called consolidated interim storage sites, again, because it's just, you know, temporary.

And I think all over the world, about 70% of the fuel that's used up is in pools.

About 30% is in these dry casks.

And, you know, these things supposedly are built to withstand natural disasters and things like that.

But, like you said, like they're stored either on or near the surface.

It's not like they're buried in bedrock, which we'll see is maybe a more permanent solution.

And, in fact, that's the one that they're –

that the U.S.

was working on inside the Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it had NRC and EPA approval, but Nevada said, nope, we don't want that here.