How Many Did You Say? Historical and Projected Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipments in the United States, 1964 - 2048 Page: 4 of 11

                                
WM'03 Conference, February 23-27, 2003, Tucson, AZ

Between 1964 and 2001, an estimated 2,457 MTHM of commercial spent fuel was
shipped, in 2,722 shipments, comprised of 2,875 cask-shipments, resulting in 1.94
million shipment-miles. About 88 percent of the shipments were made by truck, and
these truck shipments accounted for about 89 percent of the estimated shipment-miles.
The relatively smaller number of shipments by rail, 12 percent, carried about 64 percent
of total commercial spent fuel transported, because of the larger capacity of rail casks,
and because the majority of rail shipments were comprised of two or more casks. Rail
movements represented only about 11 percent of estimated shipment-miles, and the
average rail shipment was less than 500 miles in length.
The totals reported in Table I for quantity shipped, and number of shipments, differ
slightly from other estimates based on the same sources (for example, Pope 2000). (12)
The authors have adjusted the NRC data for 1979-2001 to include DOE shipments of
commercial spent fuel, and DOE shipments of reactor core debris from Three Mile
Island. The authors further adjusted this data to eliminate shipments to DOE facilities
from university research reactors and foreign points of origin. The authors estimated rail
cask-shipments for 1990-2001, and shipment-miles for 1964-1970 and 1998-2001, using
methods similar to ORNL and NRC.
PROJECTED HIGH-LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENTS, 2010-2048
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) produced one of the first systematic projections of
future shipments to a geologic repository in 1986. (13) SNL identified the important
study inputs that have been used in most subsequent projection efforts: location specific
shipment inventories, radiological characteristics of spent fuel and other wastes requiring
disposal, truck/rail modal mix, shipping cask capacities, route-specific distances from
originations to destinations, and multiple rail cask-shipment assumptions for dedicated
trains. (14) The SNL study was the basis for the projection of potential shipments
published in the DOE 1986 Environmental Assessment (EA) for Yucca Mountain: up to
94,200 legal-weight trucks, or up to 14,600 rail casks. (15)
A study by NANP staff and consultants in 1988 projected up to 76,000 truck shipments,
or 34,600 truck and rail shipments combined, for a repository limited to 70,000 MTHM.
(16) A more-detailed study prepared for NANP by Planning Information Corporation
(PIC) in 1996 projected a range of 20,200 to 104,500 truck and rail shipments combined,
for a geologic repository only, and for a repository co-located with an interim storage
facility. (17) A study prepared for the NRC in 1999 projected 75,000 legal-weight truck
shipments of commercial spent fuel to Yucca Mountain, if all currently operating reactors
renew their licenses for an additional 20 years of operation. (18)
The DOE Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for Yucca Mountain offers the
most recent projections of future shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level
radioactive waste. (19) The FEIS considers two approaches to repository development, a
Proposed Action and an expanded repository (referred to as Modules 1 and 2). Under the
Proposed Action, DOE would transport 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal (MTHM) of
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain over 24 years
(2010-2034). The Proposed Action complies with Section 114(d) of the Nuclear Waste

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