Spent Fuel Interim Storage: A Diversified Range Of Solutions

The long term management of spent nuclear fuel is not yet clearly defined in several major “nuclear” countries. As a consequence, national programs and utilities have turned towards the concept of interim storage for spent fuel. This is especially the case in the United States, where, although the management program of spent fuel has been defined in law, this program has not been implemented by the DOE, as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1987, as amended. Reasons for the failure of the DOE are many, but rest primarily with the DOE and Congress. In the interim, utilities have independently implemented dry spent fuel storage as the favored interim storage approach. Various dry spent fuel storage designs have been developed over the past 15 or so years by several companies. Several such designs have been licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), while three new designs are undergoing review by the NRC. In addition, Transnucléaire has developed several dual purpose metal cask designs for use in Europe. These designs are derived from the TN-24P that was designed and fabricated under a DOE-Virginia Power cooperative program and is used to store Surry spent fuel assemblies for demonstration at INEEL. The TN-24 family of dual purpose casks is licensed under IAEA regulations specifically for the Swiss and Belgium light water reactor spent fuel assemblies. Derivatives for the VVER assemblies of Eastern Europe are also available. These cask designs embody the 30 years of Transnucléaire’s operational experience in cask handling, loading, and unloading in wet or dry conditions at many different facilities. Transnucléaire has delivered 16 of these casks, with 30 more in various stages of fabrication, all for use in Switzerland and Belgium.