Company officials at Callaway Energy Center announced last week that they will begin moving spent fuel into new storage containers.  Callaway, located near Fulton, Missouri has been working on these storage containers for the last 4 years and is one of the last nuclear power plants to implement dry cask storage.

Shannon Abel, director of engineering projects at the nuclear power plant, said the new storage system is the industry standard and will allow the plant to store spent nuclear fuel on site until the plant closes in 2044. He said the cooling pools that have housed the nuclear waste would otherwise run out of space by 2020.

The 48 underground casks have concrete-and-steel lids above the concrete pad at ground level. Each cask can house one canister of spent fuel, which contains 37 fuel assemblies.

The Callaway nuclear power plant began operations in December 1984 and is the only nuclear power plant in Missouri. The plant can produce a maximum of 1,200 megawatts of electricity. Ameren’s legislative representative, Rick Eastman, said the plant provides power for an estimated 800,000 homes.