Generating Stations to see first-hand how spent fuel is managed and stored. The two plants were chosen because of the differences in their spent fuel storage facilities.

During the third meeting, the committee held a data-gathering session not open to the public to receive a briefing from EPRI on spent fuel storage vulnerabilities. The committee also held a data-gathering session open to the public to receive briefings on dry cask storage systems and radioactive releases from damaged spent fuel storage casks.

• Speakers on dry cask storage systems: William McConaghy (GNB-GNSI); Steven Sisley (BNFL); Alan Hanson (Transnuclear Inc.); Charles Pennington (NAC international); and Brian Gutherman (Hoitec International, via telephone).

• Radionuclide releases from damaged spent fuel. Speaker: Robert Luna, Sandia National Laboratories (retired).

On April 25–28, 2004, a group of committee members traveled to Germany to meet with German officials and to visit selected spent fuel storage installations. The agenda of the tour was as follows:

• Meeting with Michael Sailer, chairman of the German reactors safety commission (RSK, Reaktorsicherheitskommission).

• Visit to the dry cask manufacturer GNB (Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Behälter mbH) headquarters in Essen and the cask assembly facility and test museum in Mülheim.

• Tour of the Ahaus intermediate dry storage facility.

• Meeting with Florentin Lange, GRS (Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicheheit mbH), co-author of the study entitled “Safety Margins of Transport and Storage Casks for Spent Fuel Assemblies and HAW Canisters Under Extreme Accident Loads and Effects from External Events” (Lange et al., 2002),

• Tour of the Lingen nuclear power plant and its spent fuel storage facilities.

A summary of information gathered during the tour is provided in Appendix C.

During the fourth meeting, the committee held a data-gathering session not open to the public to hold in-depth technical discussions with Sandia National Laboratories staff and contractors on their spent fuel storage vulnerability analyses. The committee also received an intelligence briefing from Department of Homeland Security staff on terrorist capabilities and from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff on terrorist scenarios.

The meeting also included a data-gathering session open to the public that included the following briefings: