Spent fuel pool
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Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet equipped with storage racks designed to hold fuel assemblies removed from reactors. A reactor's local pool is specially designed for the reactor in which the fuel was used and is situated at the reactor site. Such pools are used for short-term cooling of the fuel rods. This allows short-lived isotopes to decay and thus reduces the ionizing radiation and decay heat emanating from the rods. The water cools the fuel and provides radiological protection from its radiation.
Example of a spent fuel pool from the shut-down Caorso Nuclear Power Plant. This pool is not holding large amounts of material.
Spent fuel pool
Worker examines a pond for storing spent fuel rods at the Leningrad nuclear power plant in Sosnovy Bor.
Pool inspected by IAEA following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Decay heat
Videos
Decay heat is the heat released as a result of radioactive decay. This heat is produced as an effect of radiation on materials: the energy of the alpha, beta or gamma radiation is converted into the thermal movement of atoms.
RTG pellet glowing red due to the heat generated by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 dioxide, after a thermal isolation test.