Transporting radioactive materials to a geological disposal facility: an integrated approach

Abstract

The Radioactive Waste Management Directorate (RWMD) of the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDAi) has responsibility for planning and implementing a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in the UK. The responsibility for demonstrating and providing a safe transport operation will be shared between a number of organisations acting as consignors, carriers and the consignee (the GDF operator). The radioactive waste transport system is national in scope. Its main objective is to deliver packaged waste to a facility for disposal in a manner that is safe, secure, planned, timely, cost effective, flexible, environmentally sound and robust against future changes. To fully appreciate the implications for ensuring transport safety a better understanding of the range of options for a GDF transport system is required. One extreme, the current planning assumption in the UK is that each waste producer (consignor) is individually responsible for organising their own transport to a GDF. The other extreme is where a s...