Overweight truck shipments to nuclear waste repositories: legal, political, administrative and operational considerations

Abstract

This report, prepared for the Chicago Operations Office and the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) of the US Department of Energy (DOE), identifies and analyzes legal, political, administrative, and operational issues that could affect an OCRWM decision to develop an overweight truck cask fleet for the commercial nuclear waste repository program. It also provides information required by DOE on vehicle size-and-weight administration and regulation, pertinent to nuclear waste shipments. Current legal-weight truck casks have a payload of one pressurized-water reactor spent fuel element or two boiling-water reactor spent fuel elements (1 PWR/2 BWR). For the requirements of the 1960s and 1970s, casks were designed with massive shielding to accommodate 6-month-old spent fuel; the gross vehicle weight was limited to 73,280 pounds. Spent fuel to be moved in the 1990s will have aged five years or more. Gross vehicle weight limitation for the Interstate highway system has been increased to 80,000 pounds. These changes allow the design of 25-ton legal-weight truck casks with payloads of 2 PWR/5 BWR. These changes may also allow the development of a 40-ton overweight truck cask with a payload of 4 PWR/10 BWR. Such overweight casks will result in significantly fewer highway shipments compared with legal-weight casks, with potential reductions in transport-related repository risks and costs. These advantages must be weighed against a number of institutional issues surrounding such overweight shipments before a substantial commitment is made to develop an overweight truck cask fleet. This report discusses these issues in detail and provides recommended actions to DOE.