NRC to examine testing of casks used to haul waste

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, June 19, 2002 | 10:40 a.m.

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Under pressure from Nevada officials and other Yucca Mountain critics, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is examining how new tests will be conducted on the steel containers used to haul high-level nuclear waste.

Nevada officials have long said the NRC should conduct full-scale stress tests on modern casks used to transport the waste on trucks and trains. They say such tests should be conducted before any final Yucca approvals are granted -- including by Congress.

NRC and nuclear industry officials have said new tests aren't necessary, because scale-model cask tests and computer simulations give them an accurate portrait of how waste containers would hold up in a fire, in water, in a fall, even under terrorist attack.

But NRC officials, prodded by Nevada officials, environmental groups and others who have submitted public comment to the NRC, are reconsidering, especially in light of public concern over terrorist attacks. They have hired Sandia National Laboratories, which has conducted a number of cask tests over the year, to do a new round of experiments in which casks would be burned and dropped.

The fire and "impact" tests likely would be completed in fall and summer of 2004, Sandia's Ron Sorenson told the NRC's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste during a briefing Tuesday. The panel advises the Commission on Yucca Mountain issues.

The panel must decide key issues:

-- Which cask model to use in the tests.

-- Whether to use full-scale casks or smaller-scale models.

-- A variety of specific test "protocols" such as the temperature of the fire in the burn test; placement of the cask in the fire; and the height from which the casks should be dropped onto an unyielding surface in the impact test.

NRC officials have said the tests depend in part on Congress, which would pay for the tests. Cost estimates were not available Tuesday.

Although the NRC seems committed to some sort of new tests, several panel members questioned whether full-scale tests, which would be more expensive than smaller scale or computer tests, would yield any new information and be worth the money.

And the tests likely would not yield any useful information for the NRC about how likely an accident -- or terrorist attack -- would be, panel member John Garrick said.

"I don't think you are going to learn anything," Garrick said.