Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

The risks of accidents and fires with cross-country shipments of high-level radioactive waste have been “underestimated” by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), according to an independent analysis. Freight train accidents per mile are some “36 times the NRC/DOT estimate” says the author, Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a physicist with Radioactive Waste Management Associates. Resnikoff reviewed the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) written by Interim Storage Partners and Waste Control Specialists—firms seeking a license for a dump site in Texas. Resnikoff concluded that the likelihood of transportation accidents involving fires was “underestimated,” because the DEIS fails to consider blazes lasting longer than 11 hours, a cap set by the NRC. Resnikoff points to the 2013 Lac-Megantic, Quebec, rail disaster that resulted in a 48-hour-long fire, killed 47 people, and destroyed half the downtown buildings. Had the train been carrying fissionable materials instead of crude oil, the damages and death toll would have been worse.

Further, the DEIS overlooks the inability of transport casks to withstand temperatures created by fires—particularly high temperatures typically found near the tops and bottoms of casks—which cause seals to degrade faster than the NRC model suggests, resulting in the release of radioactive gases and particles.

Resnikoff also faulted the DEIS’s analysis for only reviewing “mid-burnup” fuels (uranium that’s been moderately burned in a reactor), while ignoring “high-burnup” fuels which hold increased amounts of highly radioactive fission products, produced inside power reactors. The NRC must “more carefully review the impact of transporting high burnup fuel to the proposed … facility,” he said.

—M. Resnikoff, Ph.D., Radioactive Waste Management, Comments on ISP/WCS DEIS, October 2020

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

In late August, the Energy Department (DOE) announced that it would dilute 9.5 metric tonnes of waste plutonium at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina and ship it 1,400 miles to a military dumpsite in New Mexico. The DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, is an accident-plagued repository, licensed to store plutonium-contaminated radioactive waste left at 22 nuclear weapons production sites. The “downblended” weapons plutonium at Savanah River is typically shipped in “TRUPACT-II” containers made of multilayered stainless-steel. Up to three TRUPACT-II cans are hauled by a single semi-trailer truck. Shipment routes and a timeline for shipments will not be made public.

Plutonium is often referred to as the most deadly substance known to science. If ingested, even the tiniest amount of plutonium will continually bombard surrounding tissue with alpha particles greatly increasing the risk of various cancers. After dilution, the SRS plutonium waste is declared “below weapons grade” and would require extensive processing to be made into a nuclear weapon.

While the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration produced a Risk and Opportunity Analysis Report to assess potential transport dangers, the National Academies of Science said not all risks were “sufficiently captured and reviewed—especially in terms of health and safety.” The NAS report also noted that the number of shipments between Savannah River and WIPP will be far greater than from any other plutonium waste site.

Tom Clements, the director of Savanah River Site Watch, said, “While today’s announcement may sound good, SRS lacks down-blending [diluting] capacity and there is no schedule for the removal of the plutonium from SRS.” The current timeline projects that the plutonium will not be completely removed until 2049.

—Carlsbad Current-Argus, Sept. 15; Department of Energy, Aug. 31; National Academies Press, 2020