The German Quiver Project Quivers for Damaged and Non-Standard Fuel Rods

During the operational phase of a nuclear power plant, damaged fuel rods are usually collected separately in the spent fuel pool for a later disposal after the plant's final shut-down. In Germany the initially planned disposal path for damaged fuel rods was reprocessing. However, as part of the agreement on the first nuclear phase-out in 2000 in Germany ("Atomkonsens"), also transports of spent fuel to reprocessing plants were banned effective July 2005. With the first NPP to be shut-down in 2011 (KKI-1), its operator E.ON Kernkraft (EKK, now PreussenElektra) started a project in 2005 to establish a solution for the dry interim storage of their failed fuel rods in the on-site storage facilities, that had to be erected due to the end of reprocessing. Since the collected failed fuel rods were to be taken out of the pools only after the last regular fuel assemblies, a feasible storage solution for the failed fuel rods would have been needed by about 2016.