A nuclear power plant refuels as often as every 18 months to 24 years.
Nuclear power plants can go a 18 to 24 months before they need to be refueled which makes nuclear energy a good clean energy source as it does not need constant feeding of fuel such as natural gas or coal to keep the steam turbines running and producing electricity.
Once fueled the fuel of nuclear power keeps the water heated and steam turbines turning for 18 to 24 months before they are required to be refueled.
When the nuclear power plant is refuel it needs to be shut down and the refueling outages of nuclear power plants are scheduled during times of low electricity demand such as the fall and spring months.
And during the nuclear power plant outage, the nuclear power plant shuts down in order to replace the spent nuclear fuel with fresh nuclear fuel and to also perform any necessary maintenance and inspections of the nuclear reactor and other components including the steam turbines, bearings, generators etc.
Nuclear fuel is considered to be spent when the nuclear fuel can no longer sustain the fission reaction.
In a pressurized water reactor it can take even as long as 3 to 7 years, depending on the fuel and it's location in the reactor core.
Spent nuclear fuel can also be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts.
More than 90 percent of the nuclear fuels potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after 5 years of operation in a nuclear reactor.
Although the United States does not currently recycle any spent nuclear fuel although foreign countries like France do recycle spent nuclear fuel.
Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is a complicated and also expensive process, and a major concern also regards the risk of nuclear proliferation.
In order for spent nuclear fuel to be recycled it first has to be transported and this can be across state lines or in the example of Japan's agreement with France it could be international.
There would likely need to be permits and lots of other hurdles for people to jump through transport the nuclear fuel through state lines.