Spent Nuclear Fuel

Transportation

Spent Nuclear Fuel

Transportation
John Eversole, Chief of the Chicago Fire Department stated:

“The International Association of Fire Chiefs have taken the position that, yes,

you can safely move spent nuclear fuel and looking at the protective measures

that have been taken, it seems to us that a superior job has been done

in preparing to move this product.”

• Our national experience (to date):

2,700 shipments; 1.6 million miles; 30 years;

No harmful release of radiation

• Any shipping is subject to strict Nuclear Regulatory

Commission and U.S. Department of Transportation

guidelines and regulations

• Shipments are forecast to begin in 2010

• Estimated number of average annual shipments: 175

• Shipping containers are the most robust in the transportation industry
Transportation of Radioactive Materials

and Yucca Mountain

Introduction

The established record of transportation of spent nuclear fuel overwhelmingly indicates that it is safe.

Since the 1960s, over 1.6 million miles have been traveled by more than 2,700 spent nuclear fuel

shipments without any harmful release of radioactive material. If Yucca Mountain is approved and a

repository is built, transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from the 131

temporary storage sites located in 39 states would begin in 2010—the scheduled opening date for 2010

Yucca Mountain. No spent fuel can be moved to Yucca Mountain until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licenses the repository for receipt of spent fuel.

Should a repository be licensed at Yucca Mountain, the Department of Energy (DOE) projects that it

would conduct approximately 4,300 shipments over a 24-year period. That’s an average of about 175

shipments of spent nuclear fuel per year, a relatively small amount compared with the approximately

300 million annual shipments of hazardous materials1

—explosives, chemicals, flammable liquids,

corrosive materials, and other types of radioactive materials—that are currently transported around the

country every day.

The shipment of nuclear waste is highly regulated and subject to the utmost scrutiny. We follow the

strict Department of Transportation (DOT) and NRC transportation rules, including the use of NRCcertified transportation casks, advance route approvals and notification, and shipment escorts. The

Department also tracks its shipments by satellite on a 24-hour basis. DOE follows these precautions

carefully now and will follow or exceed any others that may be required in the future, whether by the

Congress or by DOT or NRC.

Preliminary route selection and detailed planning will begin at least five years before the first shipment

takes place. As is current practice, the federal government will work with States and Tribes before

shipments of spent nuclear fuel begin. For example, for highway shipments, each State’s Governor has

the ability to provide the DOT its preferred routes for use. This and similar interaction will ensure that

all routes meet the regulatory requirements set for safe and secure transport of spent nuclear fuel.

Finally, the Department is committed to ensuring safe practices in the transportation of nuclear materials. DOE has already trained emergency response teams in 34 States, under a variety of programs and in

cooperation with other government agencies. Using funds and expertise provided by the Department,

local fire and police will continue to be trained in advance to respond appropriately to challenges

unique to these shipments.

1 Hazardous Materials Shipments. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation, The Office of Hazardous Materials Safety Research and Special Programs

Administration, October 1998.

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The Nation’s Nuclear

Transportation Record is

Impressive

• Our record speaks for itself. Transportation of nuclear waste is

safe. Over the last 30 years, there have been over 2,700 shipments of spent nuclear fuel traveling over 1.6 million miles.

There has never been a release of radioactive material harmful to

the public or the environment—not one.

- The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is the nation’s first

facility licensed to safely and permanently dispose of radioactive

waste associated with the production of nuclear weapons. In the

last 3 years WIPP has received nearly 700 shipments and

logged 1.5 million safe transportation miles.

• Our safety record is comparable to that in Europe, where spent

nuclear fuel has been transported extensively. Over the last 25

years, more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel (an

amount roughly equal to what the Nuclear Waste Policy Act

authorizes for Yucca Mountain) has been shipped. France and

Britain together average 650 shipments per year, considerably

more than 175 average annual shipments contemplated for the

Yucca Mountain Project. While some of the shipments in Europe

travel a shorter distance than some of the shipments to Yucca

Mountain would travel, it’s worth noting that these shipments

travel across countries that are much more densely populated

than the United States.

• Transportation of waste is a collaborative effort. The Department

plans to continue to coordinate planning concerning shipments

and specific routes with states and tribes. DOE nuclear material

shipments undergo more scrutiny by state, tribal and local

transportation safety specialists than any other hazardous materials shipments. That cooperation and coordination would continue.

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What is Spent Nuclear Fuel and

How is it Transported?

What is spent nuclear fuel?

• “Spent nuclear fuel” is a collection of solid ceramic pellets. Each

pellet is approximately the size of a pencil eraser, and is secured

inside an assembly of strong, multi-layer metal tubes. These

pellets, tubes, and assemblies are specifically manufactured to

contain radioactive materials both during use in a reactor and

during long-term storage. Spent nuclear fuel is not a liquid

or a gas, and will not pour or evaporate. or a gas, and will not pour or evaporate.

• Spent nuclear fuel does not burn. In fact, it is not flammable; it

cannot burn, even if it is engulfed

in fire. in fire. Nuclear in fire. fuel generates heat

when it is subject to certain conditions

in a nuclear reactor; the heat from the

fuel is used to create steam, which

passes through a turbine and turns a

Typical nuclear fuel assembly design

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generator. Nuclear fuel is considered “spent”

when it no longer gives off enough heat to

effectively generate electricity. Once it is used

in a reactor, spent nuclear fuel further cools in

temporary cooling pools until it is safe to

transport.

• Spent nuclear fuel cannot explode. Spent

nuclear fuel is not explosive, and is not a

“bomb” of any sort—nuclear or otherwise.

Spent fuel pellets, assemblies, and transport

casks for spent nuclear fuel are designed to

remain safe and contain spent fuel under all

credible scenarios. Conversely, nuclear

weapons are specifically designed to cause

damage by widespread dispersion of energy

and radioactivity.

How is spent nuclear fuel

transported?

• Spent nuclear fuel is transported in strong,

thick-walled casks. The DOE will use extremely durable and massive transportation

casks whose designs are certified by the NRC.

The containers use multiple layers of lead and

other materials to protect the spent fuel and

confine radiation. Typically, for every ton of

spent fuel there are approximately four tons of

protective shielding materials.

• Transport of spent nuclear fuel is highly

regulated by the DOT and the NRC. The

DOT regulates all hazardous waste transportation, including radioactive materials, to

ensure public health and safety. The NRC

regulates all commercial nuclear activities, the

transportation of spent nuclear fuel, the

design, manufacture, and security of transportation casks, and any development and

operation of Yucca Mountain.

• DOE spent nuclear fuel shipments are always

tracked and escorted. The Department’s

practice is to track and escort each shipment

24-hours a day.

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To be certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, every type of transportation cask must be able to withstand

all of the tests shown below.
How strong is a transportation

cask?

• All spent nuclear fuel cask designs must be

certified by the NRC, and must safely contain

radioactive contents under hypothetical

accident conditions that simulate the conditions of severe accidents. These conditions

must be evaluated in sequence, on the same

cask design:

- a 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding

surface, landing on the cask’s weakest point,

which would be equivalent to a crash at 120

miles per hour into a concrete bridge

abutment;

- a puncture test, during which the container

must fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six

inches in diameter;

- a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475

degrees Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire

container; and

- submergence of the same container under

three feet of water.

To achieve certification, a cask must prevent

harmful release of radioactive material even when

subjected to each of these tests.

How is cask safety verified?

The NRC and the DOE both maintain state-ofthe-art capabilities to evaluate cask strength. The

NRC evaluates cask designs as part of the certification process, and the Department’s labs—the

so-called “national labs”—have been called upon

in the past to conduct a variety of cask tests.

• The NRC regularly updates its cask safety

evaluations. The NRC reviews real-life

transportation accidents to verify that cask

designs will continue to perform safely and

securely during transport. For example:

- As a result of the Howard Street Tunnel

accident in Baltimore, Maryland (which did

not involve radioactive materials), studies

were done by the NRC to determine the

potential effects of such an accident if it

involved a spent fuel shipping container. As

a result of these studies an NRC staffer

concluded that the spent fuel would not

have been damaged in a similar accident

scenario. (Nuclear Fuel, 11/12/01)

• Live-action tests. Extensive studies and tests

have been conducted. Examples are:

- Sandia Crash Tests. Sandia National

Laboratories in New Mexico subjected casks

to real-life accidents to see what would

happen. They included:

(1) A flatbed truck loaded with a full-scale

cask was smashed into a 700-ton concrete

wall at 80 miles an hour.

(2) A cask was broad-sided by a rocketpropelled 120-ton rail locomotive traveling

80 miles per hour, and

(3) A transportation container was dropped

2000 feet onto soil as hard as concrete, and

was traveling 235 miles an hour at impact.

In all of these cases the containers survived their

tests intact.

- Operation “Smash Hit.” On July 17,

1984, the Central Electricity Generating

Board of Great Britain conducted a live

television demonstration of spent fuel cask

integrity. In front of 2,000 spectators, CEGB

rammed an unmanned locomotive at 100

mph into a MAGNOX spent fuel cask. The

cask survived the test with superficial

damage, meeting the stringent containment

standards. Although the cask was of British

design, essentially the same international

design standards for strength are used in

both the U.K. and the U.S.

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• Routing. The DOT has established a process that must be used

for evaluating potential highway routes, and the NRC would

approve all routes and security plans. States and tribes will work

with the DOT, the DOE and the NRC to identify preferred

shipping routes; all states and tribes can—and some states

already have—designated their “preferred” highway routes.

• Security. Armed escorts are required through heavily populated

metropolitan areas and, at the discretion of the Governor of a

state, through the entire state. All shipments are accompanied by

escorts 24-hours a day.

• Tracking. The Governor of each state is notified in advance of

spent fuel shipments. Federal officials track these shipments

around the clock through a satellite-based tracking system. In

addition to continuous tracking by satellite, these shipments are

required to have an escort report in to the central transportation

command facility every two hours to ensure there are no problems.

• Coordination with state officials. Specific timing and routes of

shipments are kept classified for security reasons. However, those

with a need-to-know (such as state or tribal representatives, law

enforcement and emergency response officials, and inspectors)

are informed of spent fuel shipments as they are being transported. All shipments are closely coordinated with local and

federal law enforcement agencies.

• Training. States and tribes have and will continue to receive

federal support specifically to train in preparation for nuclear

shipments. This funding is intended to train local officials along

transportation routes in emergency response and inspection

What precautions does the

government currently take in

transportation?

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procedures, and is also used for the purchase of equipment. Funding specifically for

Yucca Mountain shipments is planned to

begin in 2005; the Department has worked

with the states and tribes to develop a

process for the funds to be distributed, and

plans to finalize these next year.

What is the government doing with

Emergency Preparedness

Assistance?

Since the 1950’s, the Federal government has had

its own experienced teams of emergency responders, and it currently funds an extensive array of

emergency preparedness activities that are conducted at all levels of government nationwide.

For example:

• Emergency responders receive assistance and

training from DOE, DOT, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and

others, and are specifically trained and

prepared to respond to a wide variety of

incidents and accidents. DOE will continue to

provide training resources to emergency

response personnel and employee organizations to prepare for any challenges unique to

DOE shipments.

• The Department has directly trained over

1200 responders; in addition, DOE-trained

instructors have in turn provided training to

many additional emergency personnel (i.e.,

state, tribal and local responder organizations). Training materials have been distributed nation-wide and are being integrated into

standard training for first responders.

• Since 1992, the DOE has provided about $20

million in state funding assistance. The states

that have received funding assistance are:

Alabama Arizona California

Colorado Georgia Idaho

Illinois Indiana Iowa

Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi

Nebraska Nevada New Mexico

Ohio Oregon S. Carolina

Tennessee Texas Utah

Washington Wyoming

• The DOE has provided approximately $30

million in training along routes to prepare for

shipments of radioactive waste to the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in

Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Since 1988, WIPP has trained:

21,486 State and Tribal First Responders; and

2,340 Emergency Medical Personnel

in 22 States:

Alabama Arizona California

Colorado Georgia Idaho

Illinois Indiana Iowa

Louisiana Mississippi Nebraska

Nevada New Mexico Ohio

Oregon S. Carolina Tennessee

Texas Utah Washington

Wyoming

• The DOE Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program provides technical assistance and

training to emergency responders. In the past 2

years, the program provided train-the-trainer

and direct classroom training to responders in

the following 34 states:

Alabama Arkansas Arizona

California Connecticut Delaware

Georgia Idaho Illinois

Indiana Iowa Kentucky

Louisiana Maryland Mississippi

Missouri Nebraska Nevada

New Jersey New Mexico New Hampshire

New York N. Carolina Ohio

Oregon Pennsylvania S. Carolina

Tennessee Texas Utah

Virginia Washington W. Virginia

Wyoming

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• DOT’s Hazardous Materials Emergency

Preparedness (HMEP) Grants Program has, to

date, awarded $73 million in grants to all 50

states and the District of Columbia.

• FEMA’s First Responder Grant Program is

budgeted at $3.5 billion next year for the

assistance to the nation’s first responders

(police, fire, and emergency management

services).

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NAC transportation rail cask
There Will Be Fewer Shipments

Than You May Think

How many shipments are we really talking about?

• Under the current 24 year waste emplacement plan, DOE anticipates, on average, approximately 175 rail and truck shipments a

year traveling on the nation’s rail lines and interstate highways to

move spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain. That’s approximately

one shipment every two days somewhere in the United States,

versus the tons of waste currently stranded within 75 miles of

161 million Americans at nuclear power plants—or the 300,000

daily shipments of petroleum products.

How does 175 annual shipments compare to other shipments?

• Compared to the total shipments of hazardous material: Currently, there are approximately 300 million hazardous and

radioactive shipments annually in the United States—or nearly

1.2 million shipments every working day. Many of those are

potentially more dangerous than the shipments to Yucca Mountain because, unlike the spent fuel shipments that would be

headed to Yucca Mountain, they involve explosive or highly

flammable materials.

• Compared to all radioactive shipments: There are currently about

3 million shipments of radioactive materials each year in the

United States. These shipments are made to hospitals, universities, industrial and manufacturing plants, research facilities, and

radioactive waste disposal facilities. The shipments to Yucca

Mountain would average approximately 175 a year, or about

0.006% of the radioactive shipments currently crossing the

country every year.

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What routes will the shipments

take?

• Shipping routes have not yet been identified.

We are not shipping until the end of this

decade. While representative potential routes

were evaluated in DOE’s Final Environmental

Impact Statement, actual transportation routes

have not yet been determined.

• We expect to begin developing the actual

routes about five years before shipments

begin, ensuring there will be ample time to

select the routes and methods of shipment

that best ensure public safety.

• Shipments will be coordinated with states and

tribes. The Department has coordinated with

states and tribes on transportation issues for

more than a decade and will continue that

practice. States and tribes have the opportunity to designate preferred highway routes

within their borders in accordance with DOT

regulations.

• The preferred transportation mode is rail, not

highway (or barge). As analyzed in the Final .

Environmental Impact Statement, the

Department’s preference is to ship approximately 95% of the nuclear material to Yucca

Mountain by rail. Again, however, decisions

concerning transportation mode have not

been made and all aspects of transportation

will be thoroughly reviewed and analyzed if

the site is approved for a permanent

repository.

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* Based on U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Hazardous Materials Safety

Estimate. “Hazardous” shipments include materials such as explosives, flammable

gases, solids and liquids, and poison gas.

A Comparison of Annual Shipments:
Shipments will occur whether or

not Yucca Mountain is approved.

Transportation of radioactive materials will neither begin nor end

with the approval of Yucca Mountain as the Nation’s permanent

high-level radioactive waste repository.

Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste is currently

temporarily stored at 131 sites in 39 states. This material was never

intended to remain distributed at these sites permanently. Nuclear

materials at the Department’s environmental cleanup sites, in particular, must move to a permanent, safe repository in order for cleanup

to progress toward completion. And commercial facilities, which

will continue to produce spent nuclear fuel, must also continue to

add storage capacity—or cease operations, putting at risk 20% of the

national electricity supply.

• In fact, waste stored at the nine shut-down commercial reactor

sites and one commercial storage site could be completely

removed if a repository were available. Those ten sites are:

Humboldt Bay, California Rancho Seco, California

Haddam Neck, Connecticut Morris, Illinois

Zion, Illinois Yankee Rowe, Massachusetts

Maine Yankee, Maine Big Rock Point, Michigan

Trojan, Oregon LaCrosse, Wisconsin

• We have shipped spent nuclear fuel safely for more than 30

years. Since the 1960s, we have safely shipped more than 2,700

spent nuclear fuel shipments over 1.6 million miles.

In the absence of Yucca Mountain, ad-hoc

solutions and alternative fuel storage sites will be

the means for dealing with spent nuclear fuel.

• Even if we merely keep our present supply of nuclear energy

constant, we will soon run out of space at the current temporary

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storage facilities. Off-site storage facilities will

need to be built and substantial amounts of

waste will have to be transported to them.

• Many of these older sites have reached or will

soon reach pool storage limits. Over 40 sites

are projected to need some form of dry

storage by 2010—something never intended

for most facilities at the time they were built.

And although storage facilities will be required, in many instances the construction of

additional on-site dry storage facilities will be

impossible.

• Many utilities simply do not have space

available for additional temporary storage

facilities. Major regulatory hurdles can also

pose difficulties such that other, off-site

options will become attractive alternatives.

• A coalition of nuclear utilities is working

toward construction of an “interim” storage

facility, and is currently engaged in a licensing

proceeding before the NRC; the coalition

plans to ship approximately 200 casks every

year for the next 20 years. Whether or not this

effort ultimately succeeds, it is likely that

some similar effort eventually will.

In the absence of Yucca Mountain,

excess spent fuel waste will be still

transported—it will just be

transported on an ad-hoc basis to

numerous temporary facilities

instead of under a coordinated

federal transportation plan to a

permanent underground repository.

• The essential transportation question raised

by Yucca Mountain is not whether nuclear

waste will be transported or will stay put

where it is. Rather, the question is whether, as

a national policy, it is best for transportation

to be arranged on an ad-hoc basis to potentially numerous supplemental storage sites—

or for transportation to be arranged systematically and with years of careful advance

planning to a permanent repository.

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U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Public Affairs

1000 Independence Ave. SW

Washington, DC 20585

http://www.energy.gov

http://www.ymp.gov

“The success of the cross-country nuclear shipment through our

state is a direct reflection of the cooperation and coordination

exhibited by both agencies.”

Quote from Col. Roger D. Stottlemyre,

Superintendent, Missouri State Highway Patrol

in a letter to DOE officials, August 17, 2001

“As stated in my earlier correspondence, I feel the Transportation Emergency

Preparedness Program has established a solid foundation that can be used to

prepare first responders not only in South Carolina but across the nation in

response to a transportation accident involving radioactive materials... In a

very short time, the [DOE] Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program

has been very successful and has the support of stakeholders nationwide.

Quote from Charles R. Sharpe,

South Carolina House of Representatives

in a letter to Secretary Abraham

Our national experience (to date):

2,700 shipments; 1.6 million miles; 30 years;

No harmful release of radiation