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OCR for page 48
3
The Waste Management Network:
The Role of Transportation
and Repository Location
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 mandates that the
President recommend a first site for the geologic dis-
posal of high-level radioactive waste no later than March
31, 1987, and a second site no later than March 31, 1990.
The placement of these sites will be part of a nuclear
waste management system comprising reactors; transporta-
tion casks, modes, and corridors; a repository; and,
conceivably, interim storage facilities, reprocessing
plants, or both. The geographical design of this network
will create social, economic, and institutional effects
that deserve major consideration in the development and
implementation of the Department of Energy's Mission
Plan, which has been formulated to achieve the intent of
this legislation. Involved are such issues as the sched-
uling of spent fuel shipments from reactors, scheduling
of waste emplacement in repositories, design of an
efficient transportation system, development of an
appropriate regulatory system, and development, if neces-
sary, of interim away-from-reactor storage facilities.
Chapter 1 noted that the assessment of socioeconomic
effects at individual sites requires an understanding of
the entire management network, not simply the repository
site. The panel examined the socioeconomic effects of
the above-ground radioactive waste management system from
three perspectives: the number and location of reposi-
tories, the type of transport used (rail or truck) to
move fuel, and the effect of temporary above ground
storage of waste in special facilities. Very little
analysis has been done on the socioeconomic effects
associated with these choices. This restricted the
panel's ability to develop definitive, quantitative
estimates of alternatives and also narrowed the range of
alternatives that it was able to assess. Instead, the
48
OCR for page 49
49
panel sought to identify the types of socioeconomic and
institutional effects that may be expected to occur and
the policy issues that will need to be addressed in the
implementation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
THE WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN OPERATION
The production of electricity from uranium fission
requires a fuel supply and preparation system, a power
plant system, and a system for long-term isolation of
spent fuel and radioactive by-products, with or without
reprocessing.
For many years it was assumed that all spent fuel from
commercial reactors would be reprocessed to recover unused
fissionable material. This has not happened, and spent
fuel has accumulated at reactor sites pending a decision
as to whether it will remain in long-term on-site storage
or be shipped to interim or final disposal facilities.
Commercial nuclear power reactors licensed, under con-
struction, and planned as of January l, 1982, are shown
in Figure 3.1.
Because spent fuel is highly radioactive, all opera-
tions involved in moving it to interim storage or to a
repository site for final isolation will require a high
degree of care in handling, transportation, and disposal.
Receiving the fuel at a repository site, for example,
will require highly specialized operators, supervisors,
and inspectors (U.S. Department of Energy 1979). In
addition, if the number of power plants in operation
increases from the current 79 to the projected 144,
including those in existence, ordered, or under con-
struction, the number of spent fuel shipments that must
ultimately be handled will increase proportionately.
Utility estimates provided to the panel called for these
shipments to begin from 15 plants in the mid-1980s,
growing substantially to shipments from more than lOO
plants shortly after 2000. If reprocessing or interim
storage is added, this would increase transportation
activities further.
The siting of nuclear waste repositories will require
the transportation of spent fuel across many states.
Shipments through local jurisdictions at the outer fringes
of the transportation network would be relatively infre-
quent, but, within the main transportation corridors, the
closer a community is to a repository site, the more fre-
quently shipments pass by. Alternative designs of waste
OCR for page 50
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transport and handling systems may vary significantly in
their operational requirements, their effects on dif-
ferent regions of the country, and their regulatory
burdens. In this chapter, the panel considers the
~ ~ effects associated with
the impacts of repository location and spent fuel trans-
portation. In formulating a Mission Plan, the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) will need to compare these
effects explicitly with the site-specific effects (see
Chapter 4) and geologic criteria used to assess individual
proposed repository,sites.
system-wide economic and social
A REFERENCE CASE
By early 1983 there were 79 nuclear reactors with oper-
ating licenses or authorizations, 60 with construction
permits, 3 with construction permits pending, and 2 units
on order. Of the 60 under construction, 54 are now more
than 25 percent complete and, according to utility esti-
mates (Behnke 1980), 39 of these are likely to be com-
pleted. Thus, by the early twenty-first century, there
are likely to be more than 100 reactors discharging spent
fuel in the United States. The panel took an estimate of
113 reactors as its reference case to identify socioeco-
nomic and institutional considerations involved in
deploying the waste management system. This estimate is
close to the DOE's January 1983 preliminary low case
estimate of 115 reactors by 2000 (Diedrich 1983). This
is, therefore, a relatively low case assessment of
potential effects related to program size.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was asked by
the panel to use its computer program and planning ,
assumptions to provide detail on rail and truck access to
reactors, transportation routes, transportation cask
inventories, system costs, and transport speeds to several
hypothetical sites stipulated by the panel. These cal-
culations show the projected movement of spent fuel from
operating and planned reactors to possible repositories.
The volume of transported fuel is only that which must be
shipped, owing to the exhaustion of spent-fuel pool
capacity. The mix of rail and truck transport is based
on the availability of rail access to a reactor; if such
access exists, shipments travel by rail. Otherwise they
travel by truck. (A least-cost mix would therefore
probably involve a higher proportion of truck shipments
than is given here, with shorter routes favoring truck
OCR for page 52
52
shipment and longer shipments favoring rail.) The number
of annual shipments from 113 plants (a mix of boiling and
pressurized water reactors), their transportation routes,
distances, costs, and cask requirements are itemized for
the years 1986 to 2004.* (Appendix A describes this
analysis and the DOE data and planning assumptions.)
Table 3.1 shows a set of radioactive waste management
systems and the one chosen by the panel as its reference
The Waste Funnel
The transport of spent reactor fuel entails a variety of
activities: loading on trucks or rail cars, or both;
possible collection at depots or transfer points (for
rail shipments); monitoring passage along highways or
rail lines; and offloading at the storage facilities.
This network of activities can be viewed as a "waste
funnel" in which spent fuel from widely dispersed power
plants is transported via waste corridors to one or more
storage sites. The effects of this activity are thinly
distributed at the network's many origins at the outer
range (i.e., the wide end) of the funnel but increase
rapidly as the fuel moves toward depots, heavily traveled
routes, and repositories at the mouth of the funnel.
In the past, DOE has assumed that 90 percent of spent
reactor fuel and waste material would be moved by rail
(DOE/EIS-0046F 1980, Chapter 4.5), an assumption that is
consistent with planning in Western Europe and Japan,
where essentially all spent fuel is shipped by rail. The
primary reason for this is the scale economy of being
*Time and resource constraints did not allow the panel to
review the validity of each ORNL assumption or to adjust
the timing and schedule assumptions that had been over-
taken by events. The same constraints also restricted
the number of variant cases that the panel could address.
It should be noted that the appraisal of logistical
properties of a radioactive waste management system was
done not so much as a realistic scheduling exercise as to
~'um~nate socioeconomic and institutional issues. The
implementation of a waste program will necessarily involve
a broader set of scenarios and deeper understanding of
assumptions than has been possible in this review (cf.
DOE/EIS-0046F 1980, Chapter 7).
OCR for page 53
53
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OCR for page 54
54
able to move wastes from one year's operation of a 1000-MW
pressurized water reactor with 7 rail shipments rather
than 75 by truck (based on cask sizes from our reference
case).*
In the panel's reference case, a small number of rail
and truck shipments would be required initially, but the
number would rise with time, reaching a rate of 575 by
rail and 2480 by truck in 2004 (Table 3.2). This suggests
a 30 percent truck/70 percent rail system in terms of
fuel carried. In the early years, many shipments would
require at least some truck service, as only 8 of 24
reactors expected to ship fuel by 1990 are currently
accessible by rail (Appendix A and Tables A.1 and A.7).
Approximately 900 truck shipments and 44 rail cars would
be required in that year, which implies ~ h ~ Noreen
truck/37 percent rail breakdown.
Changes in the study assumptions could substantially
alter estimated transportation requirements. If, as is
likely, a new generation of truck and rail casks that
carry more spent fuel per trip is designed and licensed
for older spent fuel, total cask requirements and numbers
of shipments would be lower and capital costs could
decline. If rail lines were to carry spent fuel on
dedicated trains, transit speeds may change and carrier
costs will increase. The panel recognizes that trans-
portation technology, and especially cask design, is
undergoing rapid change. Refinements and sensitivity
analysis for costs and logistical requirements should be
performed to assist DOE's preparation of a Mission Plan.
This rate of waste movement, however, is for a system
in which spent fuel is shipped to a repository in accor-
dance with the ORAL planning assumptions. If the opening
of a repository were delayed until the early twenty-first
century, inventories of spent fuel would certainly be
cooler (therefore more fuel could be transported in a
,= ~
*A boiling water reactor (BOOR) would require a few more
truck shipments because BWR truck casks used in these
calculations hold slightly less spent fuel. Rail casks
for the two reactor types have roughly equivalent capa-
city. Data on shipment dates and quantities were
originally supplied to Oak Ridge National Laboratory by
the DOE's Savannah River Laboratory and its subcontractor,
the S. M. Stoller Company. The data on required shipment
dates and volumes have changed considerably in the past
and are likely to change in the future (see Appendix A).
OCR for page 55
55
TABLE 3.2 Annual Spent Fuel Shipments to a
Single Storage Facility
Mixed Mode Truck
YearRailTruck Only
198611188 312
198713575 711
198829288 612
1989411053 1527
199044916 1404
199158635 1281
1992901214 2202
19931211110 2424
1994166760 2582
19952171385 3765
19962481593 4275
19972731348 4314
19983221857 5371
19993962030 6322
20004021677 6023
20015142145 7699
20025022262 7652
20035321903 7655
20045752480 8748
SOURCE: Appendix A, Table A.3.
single cask) but would have grown in volume to 8 times
the annual generation of spent fuel in 2004. The rate of
transporting this backlog will depend on future decisions
concerning interim storage, longer at-reactor storage,
cask technology, and reprocessing, but any backlog would
add to the scheduling, logistical, and impact-related
effects of the transport system.
System Characteristics
By the year 2004, there would be, in our reference
system, 113 reactors shipping spent fuel, a combined
truck/rail transportation system with average transport
speeds of 6 mph for rail cars and 35 mph for trucks*
*For the selection of rail and truck speeds, see pp. 77
and 78 below.
OCR for page 56
56
(carrying 134 casks at any one time), and, at the reposi-
tory, 1 rail and 3 truck handling bays in continuous
operation accommodating a steady flow of spent fuel. The
transportation system would pass through most of the
states, whether they had operating nuclear power plants
or not. The system would be required to have a high
degree of reliability, under the probable close scrutiny
of local officials and concerned public groups.
Implications of differences in the design of an above-
ground predisposal system, especially in the distribution
of socioeconomic and institutional effects, have not been
specifically addressed in previous analyses (such as the
Generic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE's National
Plan, DOE's National Siting Plan, or the Proposed General
Guidelines for Recommendations of Sites for Nuclear Waste
Repositories). We next examine several of the variant
designs for our scenario of once-through spent-fuel
management system handling discharges from 113 reactors.
A SINGLE, CENTRALIZED REPOSITORY OR A REGIONAL SYSTEM?
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 calls for specific
consideration of regional siting of nuclear waste reposi-
tories, but most early site characterization, much of
which predates this Act, has been concentrated in western
states. The repository selection process will require
consideration of many issues--the results of geologic
characterization, the likelihood of finding more than one
technically adequate site, the direct and indirect costs
of the entire radioactive waste management system, and
many of the socioeconomic issues addressed in this report.
Here the panel viewed these options primarily from the
point of view of the transportation system, recognizing
that many subsurface technical and economic considera-
tions must also enter into this choice.
A possible waste management system would be one with a
single repository located in the West. It is possible
that the system will fail to develop beyond one single
large repository.
Alternatively it is possible that only
western sites will be found for the first two reposi-
tories. Such a system, with several repositories located
in close proximity, would be essentially indistinguishable
from the transportation-related effects of a single
western site.
The panel asked ORNL to use its model and planning
assumptions to project the annual number of spent-fuel
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57
shipments in the year 2004 to repositories at a western
site in southern Nevada, in South Carolina, and in
southern Mississippi on the Gulf Coast (cf. DOE/EIS-0046F
1980). These repositories reflect no preference of the
panel as to location; they are merely intended to illus-
trate the range of differences associated with alternative
locations. The flows of waste are shown in Figures 3.2,
3.3, and 3.4. Summary data on the characteristics of the
single repository system are provided in Table 3.3 (see
Appendix A for full data sets).
ORNL was also asked to use its model for a system of
regional repositories in the West, Midwest, and Southeast.
_ . _
These locations were picked to minimize the aggregate
distances between nuclear power plants and repository
sites, and, again, reflect no preferences of the panel.
Figure 3.5 illustrates the transportation corridors for
truck-only shipments to regional repositories.
The site of the repository could well affect the mix
of rail and truck transport used. Because truck shipment
is more cost-effective for short hauls than is rail ship-
ment, the choice of regional repositories would tend to
favor trucks, whereas a western repository would favor
greater use of rail transport.
Costs
In capital cost, the largest element of the transportation
system is in the casks themselves (estimated at $1 million
for a truck cask and $5 million per rail cask, cf.
DOE/EIS-0046F 1980, Chapter 7).* It is unlikely that the
combined cost of all other facilities--loading and unload-
ing cranes, road tractors, and rail cars--would be more
than double the investment required for the shipping casks
alone. Thus, the total capital cost for a spent-fuel
*ORNL provided the panel with rough estimates of the
annual costs in 1981 dollars and the number of casks
required to ship spent fuel to a single (Tables 3.4 and
3.5) and to multiple repositories (Tables 3.6 and 3.7).
Because these estimates depend on many untested assump-
tions, they are primarily useful for gaining insight into
differences in relative magnitude.
OCR for page 58
58
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73
become a source of public concern in communities along
the waste funnel. Comparison of transport options for
routing to a single destination is also instructive, for
it reveals a significant reduction in routing complexity
for the truck-only system. Significantly fewer routes
would cross the states on the way to the center of the
waste funnel, and the total number of locations where
shipments would cross state borders also drops about
25-50 percent (Table 3.8).
In a single repository system, nuclear-energy-related
effects would be distributed well beyond those associated
with power production. Attention should be given to
whether the denser transport flows increase the vulner-
ability of the repository system to public concern-
related problems, labor strikes, disrupting weather, or
highway shutdowns.
Accidents of a radioactive and nonradioactive nature
will happen in all the systems reviewed here and have the
potential of eliciting considerable media attention. Here
again, the transport mode will be relevant: a truck-
dominated system would have the greater number of
accidents and total fatalities, but rail accidents have
the potential for greater loss of life and economic cost
for a single event (Norton 1981).* Given the level of
public concern, the movement of waste through communities
could be a source of anxiety to local citizens and could
lead to demands for greater local and state influence
over nuclear waste transportation policy.
In a regional repository system, the areas that would
bear the burden of long-term waste isolation would be
located closer to the plants that generate the waste. In
this way, regional siting would build upon the approach
currently being developed for the management of low-level
waste. It would also reduce adverse social effects from
transport through the substantial reduction in shipping
-
*McSweeney and Peterson (1984, p. 14) estimate that an
all-truck transportation system would increase total
transport-related fatalities by a factor of 5 but decrease
latent cancer fatalities by a factor of 2. It is also
important to note, for perspective, that the projected
loss of life is approximately one per year, a minor
fraction of the total lives lost per annum from truck
accidents (over 2000 fatalities/year) and train accidents
associated with the movement of freight (over 1000
fatalities/year).
OCR for page 74
74
distances and the fewer states and communities involved
in waste transport.
These potential advantages need to be assessed at
length and placed in a broader context. A regional
system requires finding individual sites within different
regions. This would more visibly demonstrate that all
parts of the country would share in radioactive waste
risks and burdens, thereby offering the opportunity to
lessen social conflict. On the other hand, disputes
could occur more frequently in the search for multiple
sites as opposed to a single national facility. These
trade-offs are highly uncertain and worthy of further
investigation.
The institutional effects of facility location and
transport should be carefully appraised by DOE in
formulating its Mission Plan. State and local regula-
tory, monitoring, and emergency response capabilities and
responsibilities, in particular, will need to be con-
sidered (Church and Norton 1981, Norton 1981).
The extent of these probable institutional impacts is
difficult to discern. Railroads have a traditional legal
history of independence from local and state regulation.
Yet the duration of rail stops appears to have a large
impact on both cost and risk (McSweeney and Peterson 1983)
and could lead to substantial local concern at semiurban
marshalling yards. A predominantly truck system would be
less complex in its routing than a mixed-mode system, but
the increased number of shipments could provoke more state
and local monitoring. How adequately these different
costs can be met by normal inspection and emergency plan-
ning should be the subject of further analysis.
Some states would be quite differently affected than
others. New Hampshire, for example, recently disbanded
the radiological division in its public health department
as a cost-cutting measure, and the state might have diffi-
culty resuming this activity. The Midwest would be con-
fronted with greater monitoring and regulatory costs
regardless of the transport mode used, given a western
site (Windham 1981). In a decentralized, regional
system, the number of states affected drops signifi-
cantly, and those affected are already likely to have
nuclear reactors. These states are already required to
respond to emergencies at nuclear plants and have a head
start putting in place appropriate plans and institutions.
All states, of course, must deal with broader hazardous
waste transport issues.
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75
Overall, the panel finds a number of socioeconomic and
institutional effects associated with a single or central-
ized repository system and the waste funnel such a system
would create. Prominent among these effects would be
greater regional inequity, higher shipping cost, and
larger potential regulatory and emergency response burdens
along the transport corridor. The panel considers
regional equity, with its potential for co-location of
costs, risks, and benefits (whatever they are and however
they may be defined), as an important and possibly neces-
sary ingredient in achieving social consensus on a nuclear
waste management program. The number and location of
facilities may affect levels of public concern. Finally,
the transport corridor considerations affecting cost,
socioeconomic effects, and institutional burdens have
received relatively little attention and should be
addressed more fully in the siting program.
TEMPORARY STORAGE PRIOR TO PERMANENT ISOLATION
Temporary storage and the possibility of reprocessing
have not been explicitly considered in our assessment of
facility location and transportation. One proposed
radioactive waste strategy involves interim storage of
spent fuel at away-from-reactor (AFR) facilities prior to
permanent isolation. Handling of spent fuel in the AFR
option would involve two major steps: first, transfer of
spent fuel from reactors to one or more above-ground
away-from-reactor storage facilities; second, transfer of
spent fuel from both AFRs and reactors when repositories
are able to accept shipments. Reprocessing could add
further complexity. In the AFR case, temporary storage
would relieve reactor operators of the need to expand
existing pool storage capacity, ship to other fuel pools,
r e-rack fuel to accommodate more fuel in existing pools,
transfer to dry storage in on-site, air-cooled facilities,
or, if none of these are possible, shut down the reactor.
In the event that a waste repository were opened in
the early 1990s and dry storage is not possible, some
limited amount of spent fuel might be handled in a single,
small AFR. This has been provided for in the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act of 1982. With such a facility serving
roughly 10 to 15 reactors, transportation requirements
would be only moderately higher than in either the single
or multiple repository systems. The AFR system could
become substantial, however, if repositories could not
OCR for page 76
76
receive fuel until the early twenty-first century or
long-term on-site storage capacity is not developed or
both.
With several small regional AFRs, there would be fewer
transportation requirements initially than for a single
national repository, but once a repository (or more than
one) opens, these rates will be significantly higher than
in either of the direct reactor-repository transport
systems. If fuel arrives at repositories more quickly
than it can be loaded into the repository, at-repository
above-ground storage capacity may be needed. If it is
possible to defer the AFR decision through expanded
on-site storage capacity until potential repository
locations become clearer, transportation costs and risks
might be reduced through co-location of interim storage
and final disposal.
Costs
Costs involved in the interim storage option would
probably be distributed quite differently from costs for
alternatives involving direct shipment to either regional
or national repositories. The capital costs of an AFR
storage facility for a large number of reactors might
well be less than for equivalent pool storage at the
reactors (Ghovanlou et al. 1980), although this may not
apply to dry-storage techniques, and these costs would be
increased when unpacking of AFRs begins and the extra
handling and transportation costs are added to those
incurred for direct reactor-repository transport.
Institutional Effects
Temporary storage of spent fuel has the potential for
both reducing or increasing institutional problems.
Temporary storage of spent fuel prior to permanent
isolation could add to long-term regulatory burdens on
state governments because of increased transport levels
in a reactor-AFR-repository system. It could, if located
away from reactors, relieve utilities of procedural and
logistical difficulties in expanding on-site storage
capacity. At the same time it might also allow for
additional time for planning and siting repositories.
AFRs could prove quite difficult to site, just as any
nuclear facility is, but also because of the probable
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need to ensure that they will not become de-facto
permanent repositories.
A further consideration involves the adequacy of
financial resources needed for more complex spent-fuel
management systems. DOE's National Plan estimates the
cost of a fully operational radioactive waste system at
$30 billion (1980-2000) in 1980 dollars; with different
assumptions, the Congressional Office of Technology
Assessment has estimated these costs in the tens of
billions of dollars. There is also the possibility that
these costs may be significantly underestimated, and, in
that context, there will be a temptation to postpone com-
mitments of resources needed for a full-scale program.
AFR storage could add to that uncertainty. The Nuclear
Waste Policy Act provides little guidance to the DOE on
criteria for accepting fuel into a federally operated AFR
or for scheduling shipments from reactors and AFRs to
permanent repositories. The logistical and institutional
issues involved therein require careful attention and
should be studied by DOE in its preparation of a Mission
Plan.
TRANSPORT MODE
Earlier in this chapter it was noted that DOE planning
assumed that as much as 90 percent of spent fuel would be
moved by rail rather than truck (DOE/EIS-0046F 1980,
Chapter 4.5). The panel, however, raises a number of
questions concerning this assumption.
Rail transport of spent fuel has several advantages
over truck transport, orimarilv those associated with
economies of scale.
~ ~ Current rail casks carry ten times
as much spent fuel in a single car as a truck cask r and a
new generation of truck and rail casks sized and designed
for aged spent fuel will 1 ik-1 v Dr-~Pr"- Ph i c r"1 =~ i are
advantage. ~~ ~~
~ .d ~ ~ ~ ~
Handling costs for loading spent fuel at
reactors and unloading at repositories (or AFRs) are sub-
stantially less per kilogram for rail than for trucks.
The physical economies of rail transport also mean fewer
border crossings, less overall health and safety risk,
and associated institutional burdens than would be true
if the same fuel were shipped by truck.
Other potential advantages of rail transport, however
may not translate into financial savings. The economics
of rail and truck shipment is very sensitive to average
transport speed. For normal freight, average truck
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speeds favor truck over rail by a factor of nearly 6 (35
mph versus 6 mph, although hazardous cargo is carried
more quickly by both). (For rail speeds, see Wilmot et
al. 1983 and Anderson 1978.) These speeds are currently
the basis for DOE planning and are Embedded in the ORNL
model used for the logistical calculations given in this
report. At the speeds given above, there is little
difference in average shipping costs for rail and truck.
Based on experience with hazardous cargo, expedited
service can move freight as quickly as 12 mph. This
would not reduce carrier costs but would cut cask-leasing
costs. For shipments longer than 1000 miles, this might
translate into a 30 percent savings for rail. Special
trains are a further option, but because of their high
cost would boost shipping costs beyond even transcon-
tinental truck shipment.*
State and local monitoring of shipments and develop-
ment of emergency response capability are considerations
for both rail and truck. The two modes require different
oversight systems. Traditionally, state and local govern-
ments have had little role in regulating rail shipments
of any commodity, but one recent court found that the
local community in that case had some jurisdiction over
hazardous material routing. In that case, truck ship-
ments were affected, but such jurisdiction could con-
ceivably be extended to the rail system as well (Church
and Norton 1981).
Institutional difficulties associated with rail trans-
port appear to be more formidable than those of truck
transport (see Chapter 5). Command and control systems
for hazardous material transport are developed, to some
are developed,
extent, for truck shipments, less so for rail.
several trucking companies now offer spent-fuel transpor-
tation service, and costs appear to be lower than those
used in our calculations. Spent-fuel casks are also
available for truck shipments. It is unclear how quickly
they can be made available for rail service. In addition,
the Association of American Railroads has informally
Moreover,
*One means for reducing this differential, however, would
be to utilize a larger number of casks in a single ship-
ment. For example, 10 casks in one train would reduce by
70 percent the unit cost associated with shipping a single
cask by special train (private communication from Jon
Cashwell, Transportation Technology Center, Sandia
National Laboratories).
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79
indicated that its members would prefer not to handle
spent-fuel shipments as normal or expedited freight. The
primary concerns of the railroads, as described recently
by Sandia Laboratories (Klassen 1982) are three: (1) as
long as there are any conceivable accident situations
that could lead to cask failure, the casks are not safe
enough to be transported by ordinary trains; (2) in the
event of an accident, the Price-Anderson Act and existing
insurance might not provide an adequate amount of
liability insurance protection; and (3) an accident might
lead to a prolonged shutdown of all transport operations
because of delay by nuclear regulatory authorities in
reopening the track.
The use of special trains might
resolve their concerns, although at high cost. A recent
Interstate Commerce Commission ruling, upheld by the
courts, has disallowed railroad attempts to require
special tariffs and status for spent-fuel and radioactive
waste shipment, so railroads may lack the institutional
capability to prevent such shipments. Nevertheless, the
railroad industry lacks a strong financial incentive to
become heavily involved in spent-fuel transportation,
and, in the face of that, the extent to which an incen-
tive to manufacture or use rail casks exists in the
United States is unclear.
In general, it appears to the panel that the lack of
rail access to a number of reactors, unresolved institu-
tional difficulties, and the reluctance of the railroad
industry to transport spent fuel makes the achievement of
DOE's 90 percent rail/10 percent truck planning hypothesis
questionable. We have not found a basis for recommending
a particular alternative mix, but the strong possibility
of much greater truck transportation certainly exists,
along with its particular set of risks and institutional
impacts, and deserves further attention by DOE.
FINDINGS
In its identification of the socioeconomic and institu-
tional issues associated with the deployment of a network
of waste facilities and transport links, the panel made
use of rough estimates of the scale and timing of spent
fuel discharges from power reactors and of transport
routing and costs. Only one level of potential nuclear
power production, involving 113 reactor units, was
examined. The estimates did not include the handling of
wastes from military programs, nor did they include a
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system involving reprocessing of spent fuel. Further
analysis is needed to consider how these aspects of a
nuclear waste storage system increase the effects
identified here.
On the basis of its analysis, the panel concluded the
following:
1. A substantial disparity exists between the amount
of research effort expended on technical aspects of under-
ground nuclear waste storage and the limited efforts
expended on the above-ground design of the waste system.
Specifically, the socioeconomic and institutional issues
associated with facility location and transport modes,
routes, distances, and scheduling require greater atten-
tion than they have received to date. While the panel
believes that the logistical and institutional challenges
can be met, it finds substantial tasks ahead that merit
attention in a formulation and implementation of a
national radioactive waste management strategy. The
panel also emphasizes that the kinds of problems involved
are not readily amenable to technical solutions; they
must be considered in the overall system design and in
institutional policies that include socioeconomic as well
as technical criteria.
2. The socioeconomic and institutional effects
associated with the network of nuclear waste facilities
and transportation are quite sensitive to the number and
location of repositories. These effects, as suggested by
the panel's analysis, include transport-system complexity,
shipping costs, public concern and conflict, vulnerability
to possible transport-system bottlenecks, and institu-
tional burdens on states and localities. One problem--
interregional inequity--viewed as particularly important
by the panel, could be minimized through regional siting.
The relationships between these factors and effects have
received only limited research attention and require fur-
ther explicit analysis. They will also need to be weighed
against geologic criteria and overall waste management
system costs.
3. The socioeconomic effects of establishing temporary
away-from-reactor facilities for interim storage depend
on specific assumptions and scenarios chosen and are at
present not well understood. Whether such storage facil-
ities are co-located with repositories, located at
reactors, or located away from both repositories and
reactors appears to affect significantly total system
transport costs, regulatory and emergency response
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81
burdens on state and local governments, and public concern
along transport routes. At-reactor storage, in particu-
lar, may have potential for reducing these effects. At
the same time, the panel recognizes the potential use-
fulness of the limited away-from-reactor storage provided
for in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
4. Current DOE plans assume that the transportation
of waste will be primarily by rail. The panel has iden-
tified a variety of obstacles to a predominantly rail
transportation system. The rail industry appears to have
few economic incentives and a stated reluctance to take
on radioactive waste transport. Rail also does not appear
to have a decisive economic advantage over truck trans-
port, and the rail system is less responsive to possible
demands for routing changes. These obstacles should
receive further review from DOE. If these problems lead
to greater use of truck transport, differing socioeconomic
and institutional effects will need to be anticipated.
REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER 3
Anderson, R. T. 1978. Studies and Research Concerning
BNFP Light Water Reactor Spent Fuel Transportation
Systems. Prepared for the Department of Energy.
Barnwell, So. Carolina: Allied-General Nuclear
Services.
Andrews, W. B. 1980. An Assessment of the Risk of
Transporting Liquid Chlorine by Rail. PNL-3376.
Richland, Wash.: Pacific Northwest Laboratory, March.
Behnke, W. D. 1980. Speech given at the McGraw-Hill
Conference on Nuclear Commerce in the '80's, St.
Charles, Illinois, April 28.
Church, A. M., and R. D. Norton. 1981. Issues in
emergency preparedness for radiological transportation
accidents. Natural Resources Journal 21:757-772.
Diedrich, R. 1983. Estimates of Future U.S. Nuclear
Power Growth. Pre-publication draft. Washington,
D.C.: U S. Department of Energy.
Geffen, C. A. 1980. An Assessment of the Risk of
Transporting Propane by Truck and Train. PNL-3308.
Richland, Wash.: Pacific Northwest Laboratory, March.
Ghovanlou, A., L. Ettlinger, A. De Agazio, and N. Lord.
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Kasperson, R. E., ed. 1983. Equity Issues in
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Kirby, K. D., W. J. Elgin, W. Mitchell III, S. E.
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Klassen, D. 1982. Transportation of Radioactive
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SAND-81-1447. TIC-0226. Albuquerque, N. Mex.: Sandia
National Laboratories.
McSweeney, T. I., and R. W. Peterson. 1984. Assessing
the Estimated Cost and Risk of Nuclear Waste
Transportation to Potential Commercial Nuclear
Repository Sites. Paper #IAEA-CN-43/243 Presented at
IAEA International Conference on Radioactive Waste
Management, Seattle, Wash., May 16-20, 1983. To be
published in Proceedings of that Conference (in
preparation).
Norton, R. D. 1981. Policy issues in the routing of
radioactive materials shipments. Natural Resources
Journal 21:735-756.
Rhoads, R. 1978. An Assessment of the Risk of
Transporting Gasoline by Truck. PNL-2133. Richland,
Wash.: Pacific Northwest Laboratory, November.
U.S. Department of Energy. 1979. Technology for
Commercial Radioactive Waste Management. DOE/ET-0028,
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Wilmot, E. L., M. M. Madsen, J. W. Cashwell, D. S. Joy.
1983. Preliminary Analysis of the Cost and Risk of
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Commercial Sites. Sandia Report SAND-83-0867.
Albuquerque, N. Mex.: Sandia National Laboratories,
June.
Windham, P. 1981. State government views on the
transportation of nuclear spent fuel and associated
institutional impacts. Draft. Prepared for the Panel
on Social and Economic Aspects of Radioactive Waste
Management, Board on Radioactive Waste Management,
National Research Council. Washington, D.C.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
nuclear waste
