DOE claims breakthrough in spent nuclear fuel transportation
Nuclear

DOE claims breakthrough in spent nuclear fuel transportation

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said it has successfully completed final testing for “Atlas,” a specialized railcar designed to securely transport spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

DOE recently conducted a 1,680-mile round-trip journey from Colorado to Idaho to conclude testing, with the possibility of operational approval before year-end. The trip began September 5, with Atlas accompanied by a rail escort vehicle, two buffer railcars and two Union Pacific Railroad locomotives.

Atlas, the two buffer railcars and the rail escort vehicle are poised for operational use upon analysis and documentation of the final testing data and conditional approval from the AAR Equipment Engineering Committee.

The Atlas railcar is a 12-axle vehicle built to meet the stringent safety standards established by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

During its final test, Atlas simulated a full-scale shipment of spent nuclear fuel, employing steel test weights instead of radioactive materials. It carried a maximum test load of 480,000 pounds, mimicking the heaviest transport container certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Over the last 40 years, thousands of shipments of commercially generated spent nuclear fuel have been made throughout the United States without causing any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public.

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.

Dr. Patrick R. Schwab, DOE’s Atlas railcar project manager, said the achievement equips the Department with the capability to effectively transport spent nuclear fuel to future DOE storage and disposal facilities, playing a pivotal role in nuclear waste management.

The entire 10-year Atlas railcar project cost approximately $33 million.

DOE intends to employ Atlas and other railcars for emergency responder training and informational roadshows before initiating shipments of spent nuclear fuel to a federal consolidated interim storage facility.

The Department is actively involved in a consent-based siting process to identify one or more such storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel.

In June federal energy regulators announced that they were spending $26 million to find communities willing to accept a temporary federal site to store spent nuclear fuel while a permanent repository is completed.

The effort is being conducted with the aim of creating a federal storage site independent of the two private sites proposed for southern New Mexico and Texas, which are embroiled in heated political and legal battles.

The lack of a permanent disposal site has created a dilemma for the federal government as it seeks a temporary hub to move the spent fuel piling up at 70 nuclear power plants in three dozen states.

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