Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has been granted permission by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to begin the construction of a dry storage facility for spent fuel at its Darlington site.
The facility, capable of storing 1500 containers of 384 fuel bundles each, will be similar to facilities already in use at the firm's Bruce and Pickering plants and will need to be completed before 2010, when Darlington runs out of space in its used fuel bays.
The first stage of construction should be complete in 2007, while the construction licence expires in 2008. OPG are still to apply for the operating licence which will be required before fuel is sent to the store. Two further stages of construction are scheduled to be completed in 2014 and 2021.
