Xcel Energy seeks change in radioactive waste storage in Minn.

RED WING, Minn. – Xcel Energy wants to change the way it stores radioactive waste at its Prairie Island nuclear plant in Red Wing, Minnesota, a move it says will cut costs and make it easier to transport the spent fuel for storage outside Minnesota.

The Minneapolis-based utility is asking state regulators for permission to use a different type of storage cask, as long as the design is approved by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The casks used to store waste at Prairie Island are a bolted metal design known as TN-40, chosen in 1989. Xcel’s director of nuclear regulatory policy, Pam Gorman Prochaska, says Prairie Island is the last plant still using that kind of cask.