Management and Disposal of High-Level Nuclear Waste
Transportation = safety & technical risks
The frequency and distance of nuclear waste shipments and the quantity of waste required
for an interim facility will be far greater than any our country has experienced in the past.
Some experts estimate more than 100,000 shipments would be transported over 38 years,
depending on the size of the facility.
Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission states they have conducted 1,000s of spent
fuel shipments, their record is based on relatively short distances from the reactor to nearby
storage, or small quantities transported for research to DOE labs:
Most of these shipments occur between different reactors owned by the same utility to share storage
space for spent fuel, or they may be shipped to a research facility to perform tests on the spent fuel
itself. In the near future, because of a potential high-level waste repository being built, the number of
these shipments by road and rail is expected to increase. - NRC webpage at https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-
transp.html
The transportation of large amounts
of spent fuel to an interim storage or
permanent disposal location is
inherently complex and the planning
and implementation may take decades
to accomplish.
US GAO Report, 2015, Spent Nuclear Fuel -
Legislative, Technical and Societal Challenges to its
Transportation
As of 2019, there are 81 active Independent
Spent Fuel Storage Facilities (ISFSF) in the U.S.
Three are DOE sites and the rest are co-located
at reactors, at decommissioned reactor sites, or
near by. According to a State of Utah analysis,
"12 dry-cask storage sites are located within
3,300 feet of the waste originating reactor."
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