OVERALL VIEW OF USED FUEL LOGISTICS IN EUROPE

For 50 years, AREVA TN has been performing up to 250 shipments/year of used fuel assemblies in Europe and in the world, mainly for recycling at the AREVA La Hague reprocessing plant, but also for interim storage, depending upon the used fuel management choice made by the customer. In order to comply with the different requirements of the different Authorities, AREVA TN has organized these shipments accordingly. Since the specifications of the used fuel assemblies are different from one European offloaded nuclear power plant to another, and as the handling possibilities are also very diverse, AREVA TN has designed several casks to be used worldwide. In addition, AREVA TN has designed dual-purpose casks in order to comply with the possibility of storing the used fuel assemblies in the casks after shipment. The purpose of this paper is to describe: - The range of spent fuel casks developed by AREVA TN and their evolution in compliance with authority and customer requirements - Fleet management of casks, trucks and rail cars including preventive and corrective maintenance, transport licence renewals, technical assistance for loading and unloading operations… - The organization of worldwide spent fuel transportation including scheduling, documentation, supplier control, customer and authority interface, crisis management… - The specificity of casks for transportation and the AREVA TN dual purpose casks.