LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR A LARGE-SCALE USED FUEL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

The US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy established the Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation Planning Project to lay the groundwork for implementing interim storage consistent with the Administration’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste, including associated transportation activities. Efforts include the development of a system for the large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) that will be necessary in an integrated waste management system. Progress is being made on long lead-time, destination-independent aspects of the transportation infrastructure. The large-scale transportation system for SNF is divided into three primary elements: institutional, operational, and hardware. The institutional element refers to the various forms of stakeholder interaction that must occur for this type of transportation system to be successful. It includes activities like development of a transportation planning framework, work on policy development to support training of local public safety officials, and identification of a route determination process that reflects the interests of a broad cross-section of stakeholders while meeting regulatory requirements and logistical needs. The operational element refers to the activities that must be undertaken to run a large-scale transportation system. This element is currently focused on development of a new SNF transportation routing analysis tool, study of the transportation infrastructure near shutdown nuclear power plants with onsite spent fuel storage that may be de-inventoried first, and development of tools for modeling transportation activities. The hardware element refers to the casks, railcars, and other items necessary to operate the transportation system. This element currently focuses on development of railcars compliant with the Association of American Railroads’ Standard S-2043, Performance Specification for Trains Used to Carry High-Level Radioactive Material, as well as studies related to the use of rail casks and their ancillary equipment. Substantial progress in all areas of the transportation program is being made on the path toward a fully operational SNF transportation system, and is presented in this paper.