used up eventually. your 12 foot long fuel rod full of the uranium pellets lasts about six years in a reactor, with the reactor turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes something they call spent fuel. and when they call it spent fuel, what they mean is that it is degraded enough that even though it is still wicked radioactive, it is no longer efficient for doing what nuclear power plants are supposed to do, which is generating a lot of heat, boiling a lot of water, making steam that spins turbines that make electricity. so here s the problem. after you ve gotten your good six years out of the fuel rods, what do you do with them? what do you do with the expired fuel? what do you do with that spent fuel rod? even after it has been taken out of service, it is still incredibly hot, and thermally hot, like touching the stove hot, but also very, very radioactive. what you do with it, you put
with the reactor turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes something they call spent fuel. and when they call it spent fuel, what they mean is that it is degraded enough that even though it is still wicked radioactive, it is no longer efficient for doing what nuclear power plants are supposed to do, which is generating a lot of heat, boiling a bunch of water, making a bunch of steam that spins turbines that make electricity. so here s the problem. after you ve gotten your good six years out of uranium pellet filled fuel rods, what do you do with them? what do you do with the expired fuel? what do you do with that spent fuel rod? even after it has been taken out of service, it is still incredibly hot, i mean thermally hot, like touching the stove hot, but it s also very, very radioactive. what you do with it, you put these really hot, really radioactive fuel rods underwater. you put them in pools that in the case of these japanese
uranium pellets are the fuel. and just like any fuel, it gets used up eventually. your 12 foot long fuel rod full of the uranium pellets lasts about six years in a reactor, with the reactor turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes something they call spent fuel. and when they call it spent fuel, what they mean is that it is degraded enough that even though it is still wicked radioactive, it is no longer efficient for doing what nuclear power plants are supposed to do, which is generating a lot of heat, boiling a lot of water, making steam that spins turbines that make electricity. so here s the problem. after you ve gotten your good six years out of the fuel rods, what do you do with them? what do you do with the expired fuel? what do you do with that spent fuel rod? even after it has been taken out of service, it is still incredibly hot, and thermally hot, like touching the stove
until you have fuel rods exposed. it s hot steam interacting with the thin tubing that in which the uranium fuel, thousands of these tubes in the reactor. to have that much hydrogen means they had to have been exposed for a long time and had to have been at elevated temperatures, say 2,000 degrees. very likely the fuel is damaged, too. megyn: let me interrupt you so those of us without your education on this can try to hang with you on this. to put it in terms i think folks can understand. you say this what is we are seeing there is more significant i won t say worse more significant than three mile island as in the accident there which was a partial meltdown. in pennsylvania. people say partial meltdown. you have 100 tons of fuel in the
tragedy, three mile island in 78 or 79. but you have no carbon foot prin with the nuclear power. it s something we create here. we don t have to go out and fight wars, whether it s with libya or iraq or worry about whether iran is going to use our money to develop nuclear weapons when we buy oil from them. there is really no safe choice right now for energy consumption, is there? well, first of all, we should take the oil discussion out of the equation since oil is primarily used to run motor vehicles and not turn our lights on. it s not an issue of oil versus nuclear or oil versus coal. you have to remember you aren t just talking about the operation of the reactor itself. the uranium fuel has to get there from somewhere. it s mind. when you talk about energy independence, most of our uranium comes from overseas, canada, australia, kazakhstan.