The term half-life

The comment explaining the term half-life is slightly confusing. It sounds like the substance is disappearing, and that is not what happens. Radioactive materials are by definition unstable, and will decay into non-radioactive materials. In doing so, they radiate the extra particles that make them radioactive. For example, radioactive iodine, such as we have heard about from Fukushima nuclear plant, will decay into regular ordinary iodine. So if you had 100 grams of the radioisotope of iodine, if its half-life is 8 days then at that point you would have 50 grams of the radioisotope ANDalmost 50 grams of ordinary iodine. It's not 50 grams of regular iodine, because some material was emitted as radiation during the 8 days of decay.

When fuel elements are taken out of the reactor right after they shutdown, they are dispersed in container postitions in the canal so that they are not all together from one fresh core. Each element is still thermally hot and have very high radition levels which is why they cool them so long and shield them from workers. the green crane you see in one of the photos is the gantry crane that goes over the cana and is used to transfer the elements from the reactor to the canal area. they also have over head cranes which are used to lift the fuel elements that are ready to ship into a shielded cask and then off to another facility.