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The Morris Operation in Grundy County,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
,
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, is the location of the only permanent (the rest are temporary) ''de facto'' high-level
radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...
storage site in the United States and holds 772 tons of
spent nuclear fuel Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and ...
. It is owned by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and located near the city of Morris. The site is located immediately southwest of Dresden Generating Station. Spent nuclear fuel assemblies are stored at this away-from-reactor, Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) in a spent fuel storage pool. The storage basins at the Morris Operation store spent high-level radioactive waste from Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, Cooper Nuclear Station, Dresden Generating Station, Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The newest fuel currently in storage has been at the site since 1989, and the basins are essentially full. No new fuel will be received and storage is limited to the current inventory.


Nuclear fuel reprocessing

The facility was originally constructed by General Electric to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, but was never operational in that use. Testing in 1975 revealed that the facility would not operate properly without extensive modifications, and the facility's application for a license to reprocess was withdrawn. In 2007 and 2013 proposals were advanced for the completion of the reprocessing facility.


References

Buildings and structures in Grundy County, Illinois Energy infrastructure in Illinois Nuclear fuel infrastructure in the United States Radioactive waste repositories in the United States {{Nuclear-power-stub