NRC says "comprehensive safety review" will be "quick look" and reactor fuel pools are "safe"

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko stunningly told a House Appropriations subcommittee that there were no discernable safety differences between spent fuel pools and dry casks at U.S. reactors, reports Greenwire. Using a decidedly poor choice of metaphor, he added: "The likelihood of anything happening is so small, it's hard to say that one is safer than the other. It's like [the odds of] winning the Powerball versus winning another lottery."

Far from a win-win situation, casks and fuel pools at reactors are more likely equally dangerous than equally safe. Beyond Nuclear and scores of other groups have called instead for hardened on-site storage as the least worst option for securing radioactive waste at reactor sites.

Additionally, Greenwire reported: "NRC is currently conducting a two-pronged safety review as a result of the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactor, Jaczko said. There is a 90-day review that he termed a "quick look" to see if there are any immediate changes suggested for the United States as a result of the overheating reactor."