Citation

Bronzini M, Middendorf D, Stammer R. J. Transp. Res. Forum 1987; 28(1): 21-229.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Transportation Research Forum)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed to site in Tennessee a Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility for handling spent nuclear fuel. The MRS would gather spent fuel from all (or only Eastern) reactors, consolidate and repackage it, and send it on to the first nuclear waste permanent repository, which presumably will be located at a site in the West. The DOE studies supporting the MRS place considerable emphasis on the transportation advantages which can be gained by consolidating the shipments of spent fuel to permit efficient rail transport in large casks to the Western repository. This paper estimates the transportation impacts of moving spent nuclear fuel both with and without proposed MRS facility. The principal finding is that measures can be taken both with and without MRS, to reduce transport requirements. With reduced transportation requirements, the differncess in impacts between the alternative systems are relativeley small. Thus, the choice between alternative nuclear waste disposal systems should not rest on transportation and handling cost or risk.