BUCHANAN – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the movement and storage of spent nuclear fuel at the Indian Point power plant in Buchanan.

Under the approved plan, Entergy, which owns and operates Indian Point, may load fuel in the Indian Point 3 spent fuel pool into a specially designed cask that can hold up to 12 spent fuel assemblies and move the loaded cask, outside the buildings, to the Indian Point 2 spent fuel pool.  At that point the cask will be unloaded with the fuel loaded into a more typical dry storage cask holding 32 assemblies that will be transported to the plant’s independent fuel storage installation.

Entergy sought the license amendment because the IP3 spent fuel pool is virtually full and without the new approach, it would not be able to conduct a scheduled refueling outage early next year.

The company explored installing a larger crane at the Indian Point 3 spent fuel building to allow the movement of the larger dry casks, but it ultimately determined that was not feasible.

Entergy plans to begin the spent fuel transfers next month.