Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel - Woods Hole Research Center

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Chapter 2 / Current Technologies, Economics, and Status of Interim Spent Fuel Storage was revealed. 50 Also in 1998, it was revealed that similar contamination had been observed on spent fuel transport casks used to ship fuel from Japan to Europe in the early 1990s. 51 Later that year, the Japanese firm that manufactures spent fuel transport casks acknowledged that data on the radiation protection provided by a particular set of the casks had been falsified. 52 Issues concerning data on transport cask safety have continued to arise since then. This episode highlights the need for strong and effective regulation of transport, including independent measurements to confirm that safety requirements are being met—and its political reverberations are likely to be lasting. Transport Security Another issue that has been the subject of some concern is the security of nuclear waste shipments. Spent fuel shipments, like spent fuel storage, must be guarded against both theft and sabotage intended to spread radioactive contamination (a more likely threat). The United States and Japan both have regulations in place specifying the security measures required for spent fuel transports. 53 A variety of studies have concluded that even an attack on a spent fuel transport using shaped-charge explosives on the casks would spread only a minor amount of radioactivity. These regulations and studies too, however, have been criticized as inadequate. 54 Critics have attacked security arrangements for overseas transport of nuclear material with particular vigor—indeed three Greenpeace members successfully boarded one recent shipment to demonstrate their security concerns. 55 Security for nuclear material transports clearly needs to be carefully tailored to the circumstances of the particular transport and an assessment of the threats that transport is likely to face. Transport Cost The cost of transporting spent nuclear fuel is dependent on the circumstances of the particular transport—the distances involved, the quantities of material, the modes of transport, the levels of security required, and the like. A 1994 study of the costs of the nuclear fuel cycle by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development provided an estimate of $50/kgHM for transportation within Europe. 56 Similarly, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates a total cost for transporting civilian spent nuclear fuel to the Yucca Mountain repository and accepting it there of $4.76 billion, for 50 “Resumption of Transport of Nuclear Waste Between France and Germany” (Paris, France: Office of the Prime Minister, January 31, 2001, available at http://www.pu-investigation.org/ournews/news5.html). 51 Japanese utilities reported the contamination to nuclear regulators on May 28, 1998; the utilities argued that there had been no legal requirement to report it to regulators or the public when it occurred. Fifteen casks shipped during 1990-1994 had been contaminated, at levels in one case up to 148 becquerels per square centimeter. “Spent Fuel Transport Casks From Japan Also Contaminated,” Nuke Info Tokyo, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, July/August 1998. 52 See, for example, “Data Falsified on 37 of 43 Nuclear-Fuel Receptacles,” The Daily Yomiuri, October 14, 1998. On October 9, 1998, responding to the falsified data, the Science and Technology Agency (STA) prohibited any further shipments using these casks until the safety of the casks was demonstrated (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, October 10, 1998). Although the STA expert committee judged a month later that the casks satisfied the safety requirements (Asahi Shimbun, November 12, 1998), the utility companies decided to take voluntary actions to regain public confidence, first replacing the president of Japan Atomic Power Engineering, the firm responsible for the data falsification (Asahi Shimbun, December 3, 1998), and ultimately forcing the firm to shut down (“The Cost of Data Altering Escalates,” Nuclear Engineering International, January 31, 1999). 53 The U.S. regulations are 10 Code of Federal Regulations Part 73.37: Requirements For Physical Protection of Irradiated Reactor Fuel in Transit (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, various years, available at http://www.nrc. gov/NRC/CFR/PART073/). 54 See, for example, Ed Lyman, “A Critique of Physical Protection Standards for Transport of Nuclear Materials,” in Proceedings of the 40 th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, July 1999 (available at http://www.nci.org/el-inmm99.htm). This is another area where the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office has been particularly detailed in its criticism. See, for example, Robert J. Halstead and James David Ballard, Nuclear Waste Transportation and Security Issues: The Risk of Terrorism and Sabotage Against Repository Shipments (Carson City, NV: Nuclear Waste Project Office, 1997) 55 This incident is described in O’Neill, “International Nuclear Waste Transportation,” op. cit. 56 Nuclear Energy Agency, The Economics of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Paris, France: OECD/NEA, 1994). 21
22 some 86,300 tonnes of spent fuel, or about $55/kgHM. 57 Overseas transportation would in general be somewhat more expensive, while transportation within Japan, which is carried out using ships that have already been paid for and casks that are re-used, would be expected to be cheaper. Indeed, the projected transportation cost for a centralized dry cask storage facility in Japan presented in Table 2.1 above, is extraordinarily low, amounting to roughly $7/kgHM—presumably because the transport ships, vehicles, and casks already exist, so only the additional operations costs need to be included. Of course, unique circumstances—including political circumstances—can affect the cost of transportation dramatically. In Germany, for example, 30,000 riot police were required to protect the first shipment of nuclear waste to the Gorleben site, at a cost of some $57 million for a modest amount of spent fuel. 58 Political and Institutional Constraints on Transport As with interim storage, the most difficult and complex aspects of transportation of spent fuel are building public confidence and overcoming the political and institutional constraints. In the United States, for example, legislation to establish a centralized interim storage site, was met with considerable skepticism over the safety of the required shipments, and was quickly dubbed the “mobile Chernobyl” bill by critics—a technically nonsensical but politically effective bit of sloganeering. 59 There has also been substantial public concern and political opposition to international transports of various nuclear materials, such as the shipments between Japan and Europe. 60 The political and institutional constraints on transportation are much more difficult and complex in the Unit- INTERIM STORAGE OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL ed States than in Japan, because of the long overland transport routes that are likely to be required in the United States. These routes pass through nearly every state, hundreds of local communities, and the lands of numerous sovereign Native American tribes. Each of these jurisdictions must be involved in preparation for a transport, emergency planning, and the like, and each may have its own reasons for opposing the transport. A huge complex of Federal agencies—the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and more—share parts of the responsibility for ensuring the safety of transports of nuclear material, and must be involved. The planning process for any particular shipment can take years, and the opportunities for opponents to intervene to stop a shipment from taking place are legion. In general, there has been greater success in addressing these concerns and building public support where there was an open and transparent process designed to build general agreement that the transport was necessary, and the alternative of the status quo without transportation was not acceptable. 61 Approaches to such processes are discussed in detail in Chapter 5. Current Storage Status: United States As of the end of 1998, just over 38,400 tHM of commercial spent fuel was in storage in the United States. Of that total, all but 755 tHM was stored at reactor sites, and all but 1,511 tHM was in pool storage. 62 The spent fuel cooling pools at over half of U.S. power reactors are currently over 50% full. Had the reactor operators relied only on their storage pools, several would 57 See Report to Update Total System Life Cycle Cost Estimate for Site Recommendation/ License Application (Washington, DC: DOE, December 1999), p. 35. 58 See O’Neill, “International Nuclear Waste Transportation,” op. cit. 59 See, for example, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “Why We Call It `Mobile Chernobyl,’” fact sheet, available at http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whywecallitmobilechernobyl.htm 60 O’Neill, “International Nuclear Waste Transportation,” op. cit. 61 Ibid. The case of the U.S. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), where transportation was ultimately accepted after prolonged delays in opening the facility—and an extensive process of public discussion and of making provision for transparency in the shipments—is another example of this type of approach. 62 “Detailed United States Spent Nuclear Fuel Data as of December 31, 1998,” available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/ cneaf/nuclear/spent_fuel/ussnfdata.html.
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The Project on Socio-technics of Nu
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