232- Transport of residues with TN®81 cask: Past, present, and future

France, like other countries including Japan, the UK, Russia and China, has chosen the closed fuel cycle, where 96% of the content of used fuel is recycled. This treatment, performed at AREVA’s La Hague plant allows recovering uranium 95% and plutonium 1% for recycling, the remaining 4% being considered as ultimate waste. Most of the ultimate waste can be sorted into two categories: ? High level activity waste (HLW) composed of fission products and minor actinides which account for the largest share of radioactivity; this type of waste is vitrified. ? Long-lived intermediate level waste (ILW) composed of structural elements of used nuclear fuel (hulls and end pieces); this type of waste is compacted. Whether vitrified or compacted, the waste is conditioned in the same universal and multipurpose container, the Universal Canister (UC). The resulting residue is named CSD-V (or UC-V) for vitrified waste and CSD-C (or UC-C) for compacted waste; they both remain property of the utilities and must be returned to the countries of origin. In order to transport Universal Canisters under the best technical and economical conditions, TN International designed two cask solutions for its customers: either for transport only or for dual purpose, storage and transport, depending on the facility receiving the canisters. The purpose of this paper is to outline the past, the present and the future of the TN®81 dual purpose cask. In the mid nineties, TN International started to design a cask for transport and storage of vitrified high level waste conditioned at the AREVA La Hague recycling facility: TN®81 cask. The TN®81 cask is currently licensed in France, Switzerland and the UK and will very soon be licensed in Australia. The first TN®81 cask was loaded in June 2004. The TN®81 cask is the best solution for the return and storage of all kinds of recycling waste packed in a universal metallic canister. It will be proposed in the near future to other European customers who have chosen the recycling of used fuel.