Lessons learned from the West Valley spent nuclear fuel shipment within the United States

Abstract

AbstractThis paper describes the lessons learned from the US Department of Energy (DOE) transport of 125 DOE-owned commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies by railway from the West Valley Demonstration Project to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). On 17 July 2003, the DOE made the largest single shipment of commercial SNF in the history of the United States. This was a highly visible and political shipment that used two specially designed Type B transport and storage casks. This paper describes the background and history of the shipment. It discusses the technical challenges for licensing Type B packages for hauling large quantities of SNF, including the unique design features, testing and analysis. This paper also discusses the pre-shipment planning, preparations, coordination, route evaluation and selection, carrier selection and negotiations, security, inspections, tracking and interim storage at the INL.