What to do with spent nuclear fuel?

New York Times : As the American nuclear industry faces new scrutiny following the incident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, options for safely storing spent nuclear fuel are being reexamined, writes Matthew Wald for the New York Times. Currently, spent fuel is first stored in onsite pools to cool it. It’s then transferred to dry casks when the pools reach capacity. The nuclear calamity in Japan has refocused attention on the vulnerability of America’s spent fuel pools, which are generally more packed than the damaged ones at Fukushima. Some scientists and several members of Congress are calling for the fuel to be moved from the pools into dry casks more quickly; the casks are thought to be safer in the event of an earthquake or plane crash, they have no moving parts, and they require no electricity. However, some industry experts point out that transferring the fuel involves risks of its own and that the US still lacks a dedicated repository for nuclear waste.