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 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

 Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200

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Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov

 

No. 06-020 February 9, 2006

NRC WELCOMES NATIONAL ACADEMIES STUDY CONCLUSION THAT

TRANSPORTATION OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL IS SAFE

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission welcomes today’s report by the National Academies on

the transportation of spent nuclear fuel, which the agency believes validates its efforts to ensure the

safe transport of spent fuel and high-level waste.

The report, “Going the Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level

Radioactive Waste in the United States,” was released today by the National Research Council, part of

the National Academies. It was compiled by the Council’s Committee on Transportation of

Radioactive Waste.

The report’s principal finding is that there are “no fundamental technical barriers to the safe

transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.” Shipment of

spent fuel by rail or truck is “a low-radiological-risk activity with manageable safety, health, and

environmental consequences when conducted in strict adherence to existing regulations.”

The report also concluded that “the radiological risks associated with the transportation of spent

fuel and high-level waste are well understood and are generally low.” It attributed this conclusion in

part to “rigorous international standards and U.S. regulations for the design, construction, testing, and

maintenance of spent fuel packages.”

The committee recommended that the NRC conduct further research into the health and safety

risks of long-duration fires engulfing spent fuel transportation casks. Although the committee took note

of the NRC’s recent study modeling the effects of the 2001 Baltimore tunnel fire on spent fuel casks,

that study was not completed in time to be considered fully by the National Academies in today’s

report. That NRC study, and a similar one modeling the effects of a long-duration fire on a truck cask,

concluded that no spent fuel would likely be released from NRC-certified casks under such fire

conditions.

The report also recommended that “full-scale package testing should continue to be used as part

of integrated analytical, computer simulation, scale model, and testing programs to validate package

performance.” This recommendation is also consistent with the goals of the NRC’s Package

Performance Study, which is now under development.
Although the National Academies panel did not assess security risks of spent fuel

transportation, it recommended that an independent assessment of security issues be conducted. The

NRC has ordered licensees to implement several security enhancements since the Sept. 11, 2001,

terrorist attacks and is in the process of completing a series of security assessments of spent fuel

storage and transportation in the post-Sept. 11 threat environment.

The National Academies study was sponsored by the NRC, the Department of Energy, the

Department of Transportation, the Electric Power Research Institute, the National Academy of

Sciences, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

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