Options for transportation of used fuel from dry storage at decommissioned reactor sites in the United States

The current inventory of used nuclear fuel assemblies (UNFAs) from commercial reactor operations in the United States totals approximately 65,000 metric tons or approximately 232,000 UNFAs primarily stored at the 104 operational reactors in the US and a number of decommissioned reactors. This inventory is growing at a rate of roughly 2,000 to 2,400 metric tons each year, (Approx. 7,000 UNFAs) as a result of ongoing commercial reactor operations. In January 2010, The Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) was directed to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and recommend a new plan. The BRC issued their final recommendations in January 2012. One of the main recommendations is for the United States to proceed promptly to develop one or more consolidated storage facilities (CSF) as part of an integrated, comprehensive plan for safely managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. Another key recommendation is to remove in priority the used fuel at the decommissioned reactors where used fuel and greater than class C (GTCC) waste are currently stored on 9 different sites with 258 canisters. At least two more plants will be in decommissioning by the time that a centralized storage facility could start to receive fuel: Oyster Creek and Kewaunee. These will both have fuel in dry storage, also with a licensed transport cask (MP-197HB), but also fuel in pools. That fuel remaining in pools may be the real first priority. This paper will describe the different package and transportation challenges and describe alternate options to transfer the used fuel from the decommissioned reactors to a consolidated storage facility.