Spent Fuel Shipping Cask Handling Capability Assessment of 27 Selected Light Water Reactors

摘要

This report presents an assessment of the spent fuel shipping cask handling capabilities of those nuclear plants currently projected to lose full core reserve capability in their spent fuel storage basins in the near future. The purpose of this assessment is to determine which cask types, in the current fleet, each of the selected reactors can handle. The cask handling capability of a nuclear plant depends upon both external and internal conditions at the plant. The availability of a rail spur, the lifting capacity of the crane, the adequacy of clearances in the cask receiving, loading, and decontamination areas and similar factors can limit the types of casks that can be utilized at a particular plant. This report addresses the major facility capabilities used in assessing the types of spent fuel shipping casks that can be handled at each of the 27 selected nuclear plants approaching a critical storage situation. The results of this study cannot be considered to be final and are not intended to be used to force utilities to ship by a particular mode. In addition, many utilities have never shipped spent fuel. Readers are cautioned that the results of this study reflect the current situation at the selected plants and are based on operator perceptions and guidance from NRC related to the control of heavy loads at nuclear power plants. Thus, the cask handling capabilities essentially represent snap-shots in time and could be subject to change as plants further analyze their capabilities, even in the near-term. The results of this assessment indicate that 48% of the selected plants have rail access and 59% are judged to be candidates for overweight truck shipments (with 8 unknowns due to unavailability of verifiable data). Essentially all of the reactors can accommodate existing legal-weight truck casks. 12 references, 1 figure, 4 tables. (ERA citation 10:006460)