Comprehensive Training Structure for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials in Switzerland

Although Switzerland is world famous as an alpine tourist land, it is also an advanced industrialized country with a gross national product in 1990 of 316x109 Swiss Francs. Switzerland has a population of 6.7x106 and an area of 41x103 km2. There are four national languages; French {18.4%), German (65%), Italian (9.8%) and ruttoromanisch (0.8%). The generation in Switzerland of nuclear electricity commenced in 1969 with the operation of the first plant at Bemau. In 1990, Switzerland had 5 operating nuclear power plants generating a total of 2930 MW, representing 41% of all generated electricity. The policies to date of the nuclear utilities have been associated with reprocessing of the irradiated fuel. Thus Switzerland is involved with the full spectrum of transports of radioactive material, (RAM), relating to operational nuclear power plants. These include unirradiated fuel assemblies, irradiated fuel assemblies, irradiated and unirradiated samples and components, radioactive power plant waste and radioactive reprocessing waste. These fuel cycle transports, combined with the usual array of medical and industrial isotope transports normally associated with an advanced industrialized country, result in some 40,000 to 50,000 packages per year involving up to some 200 PBq of radioactive material.