Doubts raised about nuclear cask testing

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 11:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials said today that they have a number of concerns about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's proposed tests for the massive metal containers that would be used to haul nuclear waste cross-country to Yucca Mountain.

Specifically, the NRC in its draft plan proposes to test just two waste container designs, one to be used on trucks and one for train shipments. Nevada officials want full-scale tests for every cask design that could eventually be used to haul the highly radioactive waste to its permanent repository at Yucca, said Fred Dilger, Clark County transportation planner.

Further, the NRC should consider requiring the casks to pass full-scale tests as a condition for the casks to receive an NRC license, said Bob Halstead, a waste shipping expert hired by Nevada.

"On the one hand, the NRC is signalling that for the first time in 25 years, they are willing to talk about these (full-scale) testing issues," Halstead said, prior to a public hearing held by the NRC today on the new cask tests. "On the other hand, they don't seem to want to do any of the things we think should be done."

The NRC, as well as waste container manufacturers, have long required that the casks meet certain criteria so that the casks don't crack open in an accident and leak radioactive particles. The NRC conducts computer modeling tests and actual tests of smaller-scale models of casks.

But Nevada officials for years have requested that the NRC conduct full-scale tests of the actual-size casks before proceeding with any plans to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Last year NRC officials said they would begin full-scale test planning in order to validate existing.

Exact costs for the tests, which would likely take place in 2005 at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, are not known.

The NRC recently released a draft plan for tests. But they stressed that the draft was just a proposal. The proposal calls for two types of tests for each of the two casks: a series of tests in which the casks are dropped from a height that simulates a 75 miles-per-hour crash with an unyielding surface; and fire test for more than 30 minutes.

Now the NRC is holding four public meetings to get input on a long list of test factors, NRC cask testing director Andrew Murphy said. Among them: cask speed in the impact test, duration of the fire test, and where the cask should be placed in the fire.

Nevadans will have a chance to weigh in on the questions at a meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Clark County Building Department at 4107 West Russell Road. The meeting runs until 7 p.m. Today at the first public hearing held at the NRC's Rockville, Md., headquarters, NRC officials hosted a number of panelists with varying suggestions.

Several nuclear industry and cask manufacturers questioned the need for the costly new tests. But Charles Pennington of NAC International said he supported tests, although his company had conducted so many computer and scale-model tests that "we can predict millisecond to millisecond deformation" of a cask during an accident.

Abby Johnson of Eureka County, Nev., urged NRC officials to do a better job of explaining their test protocols and cask requirements to those who are most effected by the Yucca waste shipping plan. People in Eureka County don't understand the complex proposals, she said.

"The public isn't the people in this room," she said. "If you are looking for public confidence you have to be able to explain your tests to regular people."

Activist Kevin Kamps said the tests should include water immersion and crush tests in which heavy loads are dropped on the casks, as well as tests that simulate a missile attack by terrorists. Kamps said he was concerned that the tests would end up meaningless except to nuclear industry officials as a "public relations exercise."