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The issue that the three authors claim demonstrated the NRC's condition as a captured regulatory agency is often referred to as a spent fuel pool fire. Specifically, they are worried about the fact that U.S. spent fuel pools are loaded with a large quantity of fuel assemblies that have been used to generate power and thus contain radioactive isotopes, including cesium-137, a gamma emitting isotope with a 30-year half life. They assert that the potential radioactive contamination problem associated with the material in the spent fuel pools could be reduced by moving assemblies that have been out of reactors for more than five years into licensed dry storage containers.