Re: Transportation of spent nuclear fuel

[AndrewsJP@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 11/17/2001 11:53:10 AM Eastern Standard Time, RuthWeiner@AOL.COM writes:



> I would like Norm Cohen to tell us on RADSAFE, in some detail, exactly why he is concerned about the transportation of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, and exactly what it is about that transportation that concerns him.  I'd also like to know the source or sources of the information that cause him concern.  


Seems to me that we already had this question answered in complete detail.  We had at one time the problem of transporting something that we could not put on a flat car and haul across the country and do it safely.  So, we got some capable engineers to establish the requirements for safe transport. They did. Interested people commented on the process all along the way and no one was ignored. We then had several groups design the devices to do the safe transport and they did, with more comments. We built a number of these devices and proposed to the regulators to use them. We tested the shielding casks and were unable to break them. The regulators reviewed all the requirements and how they were satisfied and agreed that we could use them.  Given this process of enormous concern for safety, we can safely transport this really awful stuff without much concern by the public.  In fact, my only concern with respect to transporting spent fuel or other high lev!

el waste is I don't want to be involved in an accident with a truck carrying this stuff,  I might get crushed by a shielding cask! (I don't want to be in any accident at all.) I also would like to know what unanswered questions there are in this process.  I suspect that some people believe that they were ignored when their concerns were reviewed and they are continuing to pursue the same issues. 


What we need to do now is get on with the process of moving the material to a much safer location where it will be safe for a long, long time; or reprocess spent fuel to recover the fissionable material for use in advanced reactors so the process can go on for thousands of years and we and our hiers can have the benefits of abundant clean energy essentially forever.


John Andrews

Knoxville, Tennessee