Los Alamos National Laboratory recently performed a series of customized criticality experiments to obtain data that will support the transportation of HALEU TRISO fuel, the Department of Energy announced April 21.

Savannah River National Laboratory said it has received a patent for its radially oriented honeycomb structures. The technology offers a solution to the deformation of cylindrical honeycomb structures when they are formed from flat panels, providing a way to create structures with greater wall thickness than traditional methods.

As highlighted in the Spring 2024 issue of Radwaste Solutions, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are developing and deploying ARG-US—meaning “Watchful Guardian”—remote monitoring systems technologies to enhance the safety, security, and safeguards (3S) of packages of nuclear and other radioactive material during storage, transportation, and disposal.

Orano completed the 13th and final rail shipment of vitrified high-level nuclear waste from France to Germany. The company announced that the four casks of vitrified HLW arrived at Germany’s intermediate storage facility at Philippsburg in the early evening of November 20.

The Department of Energy announced November 19 that up to $16 million is available through a new High-Assay Low-Enrichment Transportation Package funding opportunity to research, develop, and acquire Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing for transportation of HALEU—using new or modified packages.

The U.S. Navy’s Surface Ship Support Barge, converted in the 1960s from a WWII T2 tanker to a support barge to accept spent nuclear fuel during the refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers, was dismantled and disposed of by the nuclear decommissioning company APTIM as a first-of-its-kind vessel dismantlement project for the Navy. The project was executed under contract with Naval Sea Systems Command; however, regulatory oversight was accomplished through an interagency framework agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Orano USA announced that it has recently completed the transportation and disposal of the dismantled Crystal River Unit 3 reactor using only four large packages, which were shipped more than 1,800 miles each by barge and multi-axle trailer from the nuclear power reactor’s site on Florida’s west coast to Waste Control Specialists’ disposal facility in Andrews County, Texas.

The Department of Energy awarded $17 million on August 30 for 16 experiment and analysis projects expected to yield criticality data that will assist the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in licensing and regulating high-assay low-enriched uranium and the fuel infrastructure—including packaging and transportation containers—required to demonstrate and deploy HALEU-fueled advanced nuclear reactors. Project teams include six national laboratories taking lead roles in partnership with other labs, universities, and multiple industry partners.

The OPTIMUS-H transportation cask from NAC International. (Photo: NAC)

NAC International announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has certified a highly shielded version of the company’s OPTIMUS (Optimal Modular Universal Shipping) transportation package for radioactive materials and waste. NAC’s OPTIMUS-H is now approved under 10 CFR Part 71 with Certificate of Compliance (CoC) USA/9392/B(U)F-96, effective Aug. 5, 2024.

The OPTIMUS-H CoC follows licensing approvals of the cask in Canada and Australia. Previously, the lightweight version of the OPTIMUS package, OPTIMUS-L, received certification from the NRC and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

NAC unveiled its first OPTIMUS to the public at the 2020 Waste Management Conference in Phoenix. Since then, NAC has delivered 22 OPTIMUS-L and nine OPTIMUS-H systems to support North American packaging and transportation projects.

The Department of Energy has issued a request for information to gather input on its proposed package performance demonstration, which is intended to demonstrate the robustness of spent nuclear fuel transportation casks in hypothetical accident conditions. By simulating severe accident scenarios, the DOE said it intends to show to the public and stakeholders the safety and reliability of transporting SNF by rail, heavy-haul truck, and barge.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy announced last week that the Association of American Railroads has certified its Atlas railcar system to operate on all major freight railroads in the United States.

Watch a video of the Atlas railcar development here.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy will provide an update to the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel (CEP) on spent fuel transportation preparations on Thursday, October 26, at its quarterly meeting. The virtual meeting will begin at 2:00 p.m. (PDT) via Microsoft Teams video conference.

Members of the public can view the meeting online by visiting the SONGS community website for the link to the Microsoft Teams meeting and to register to comment.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has wrapped up testing of its Atlas railcar, successfully completing a round-trip journey from Pueblo, Colo., to Scoville, Idaho. Built to safety standards set by the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the 12-axle railcar is designed to transport large containers of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

The Department of Energy released two draft requests for proposals to acquire high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)—one covering enrichment services that could include the production of between 5 and 145 metric tons of HALEU during a 10-year performance period, and another for deconverting that HALEU from uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) gas to metal or oxide forms in preparation for fuel fabrication. The DOE also issued a notice of intent to fulfill its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) obligations for the HALEU Availability Program by launching the scoping process for an environmental impact statement; that notice was published in the Federal Register on June 5.

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) recently marked a milestone after its drivers exceeded 16 million safe miles without a serious accident or injury—equivalent to 33 round trips to the moon or more than 642 trips around the world, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management announced.

The Department of Energy is offering cost-shared funding that could lead to the demonstration of an “energy park” drawing 20–300 MW of thermal energy from a U.S. nuclear power plant under a funding opportunity amendment issued in August by the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program, in coordination with the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) has awarded CAST Specialty Transportation a contract to provide transportation services for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the DOE’s repository for defense-generated transuranic (TRU) waste near Carlsbad, N.M.

Depending on the size and complexity of a decommissioning project, the transportation and disposal of radioactive waste will have an oversized impact on planning, schedule, and budget. The scope of decommissioning a site contaminated with radioactive material begins and ends with the proper and safe packaging of waste and subsequent transportation from the site to the final disposal location. Once all of the waste is gone from the site, the compliance exercise can be completed and the site released from controls (i.e., the radioactive materials license is terminated and the site is decommissioned).

Framatome announced on February 22 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a license amendment that would allow Framatome’s shipping containers to transport, in the United States, fresh nuclear fuel assemblies containing uranium enriched up to 8 percent uranium-235.

Light water reactor fuel with higher enrichments and burnup capabilities than currently used under low-enriched uranium regulation could improve electricity generation and fuel utilization, possibly improving plant economics and providing more flexible reactor performance through extended operating cycles and more efficient core configurations.

The Department of Energy has issued a request for proposals for the fabrication and testing of a prototype eight-axle railcar to carry the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The heavy-duty, flat-deck railcar design known as “Fortis” received approval from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) in January 2021 to proceed to building and testing.