A New Specialized Train Is Ready to Haul Nuclear Waste

Nuclear energy vegetation are on monitor to generate greater than 140,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) earlier than 2060. Yearly, 2,000 tonnes of radioactive heavy steel be a part of the rising stock of gasoline faraway from nuclear energy reactors—each working and decommissioned. Within the coming many years, the U.S. Division of Power (DOE) might want to transport that materials to future storage services.

The quantity of current spent gasoline—90,000 tonnes—is already outgrowing at present obtainable storage choices. Storage casks and cooling swimming pools have reached most capability at most of the 75 plants that host SNF on-site. This materials was by no means meant to remain at these websites long-term. However, with permanent storage efforts gridlocked because the early 2000s, a once-temporary repair grew to become the established order, leaving the DOE paying US $10.6 billion to cowl utilities’ storage prices.

Nonetheless, regulators and lawmakers are lastly transferring the needle. Congress lately directed the DOE to hunt an interim consolidated storage web site to carry SNF till a everlasting answer turns into obtainable—doubtless a geologic repository positioned between 300 and 1,000 meters underground. Nonetheless, this future repository is at least a decade away.

Within the meantime, the DOE is tackling a secondary problem: Modernizing current railcars to accommodate the eventual scale-up of SNF shipments. The result’s Atlas, a multi-car system designed to maneuver about 217 tonnes of SNF and high-level radioactive waste to future storage and disposal locations.

After a decade and $33 million of improvement, the Affiliation of American Railroads (AAR) recently cleared the 12-axle system to function on all major freight railroads in america. Atlas’s most important railcar bears an SNF container held in place by a 7-tonne cradle and two 10-tonne finish stops. Two buffer railcars present protected spacing between the principle railcar and the 2 locomotives powering the prepare, in addition to a rail escort car (REV) caboose that carries armed safety workers for surveillance. The U.S. Navy co-developed the escort vehicle, to switch its personal aging REV fleet, which is used to escort naval SNF and categorized ship elements by rail. Atlas employs each cell and satellite tv for pc communications and a mesh radio hyperlink to remain in contact with the cabs.

Engineers completed closing testing on Atlas in September 2023 with a 2,700-kilometer journey from Colorado to Idaho. U.S. Division of Power

Traditionally, each vans and trains have transferred hundreds of shipments of irradiated nuclear gasoline between DOE analysis websites, utility-owned reactors, and New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s solely deep geologic repository for weapons-generated waste. Whereas vans’ authorized weight restrict is 36 tonnes, rail can effectively deal with high-capacity SNF casks and contaminated soil from cleanup websites in a single cargo. Atlas’s superior real-time monitoring system builds on these capabilities.

Atlas comes as nuclear remains a key contributor of fresh power within the U.S., surpassing wind and photo voltaic to generate 18.6 % of the nation’s electrical energy last year—sufficient for over 70 million homes. Regardless of their excessive capability, nuclear reactors produce a comparatively low quantity of waste. Annual SNF outputs translate to less than half of an Olympic pool.

After gasoline is spent inside a reactor, plant operators immerse gasoline assemblies in 40-foot concrete swimming pools lined with metal to isolate radiation. As soon as it’s cooled for at the least 5 years, SNF strikes to metal canisters shielded by an outer layer of concrete, metal, or each. These dry casks can keep on-site for 40 years.

Spent nuclear gasoline is saved throughout america, with a lot of it hundreds of kilometers away from current and future storage websites.U.S. Government Accountability Office

Within the Nineteen Eighties, the Nuclear Waste Coverage Act mandated the DOE to begin completely disposing of SNF in an underground repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. Nonetheless, social and political opposition in the end quashed the hotly contested venture. The regulatory complexity of a everlasting storage answer stays a vital barrier in SNF administration, notably amid uncertainty about the safety of long-term dry storage. Because the DOE is within the early phases of siting a federal interim facility, SNF will doubtless stay at vegetation till the late 2030s.

The DOE says Atlas’s improvement spanned 10 years as a result of complexity of AAR’s S-2043, the strictest commonplace for freight railcars transporting SNF and high-level radioactive waste in North America. Atlas has a collection of sensors monitoring 11 efficiency parameters required by S-2043, resembling bearing circumstances, velocity, rocking, and braking. The built-in safety and security monitoring system options mechanisms to stop derailments from tools failure or degradation.

The DOE initially envisioned Atlas as an eight-axle railcar. Throughout the conceptual design part, pc modeling indicated the prepare’s efficiency won’t meet all S-2043 necessities. Round this time, the Nuclear Regulatory Fee (NRC) licensed a brand new 190-tonne cask, which is just too heavy for axle loadings on a smaller railcar. These circumstances impressed a 12-axle redesign.

The Atlas railcars are separated from the locomotives and escort railcar by empty buffer vehicles to take care of a protected distance from the spent nuclear gasoline.U.S. Division of Power

The railcars and locomotives accomplished a roughly 2,700-kilometer (1,680-mile) demonstration to make sure on-track compatibility and security. Touring easily from Colorado to Idaho, the check simulated the heaviest NRC-certified cask with metal dummy weights totaling virtually 220 tonnes (480,000 kilos), accompanied by a REV, buffer vehicles, and Union Pacific Railroad locomotives.

Heavier SNF containers demand the dozen axles that Atlas gives, however eight axles can transfer comparatively lighter packages of at the least 72 tonnes extra effectively. After Atlas transitioned to a 12-axle railcar, the DOE initiated an eight-axle venture for smaller payloads. The AAR permitted the design in 2021, and began prototype fabrication this yr.

Fortis, comprising the identical payload attachment system, monitoring system, REV, and buffer automobiles, is predicted to be accomplished within the late 2020s. “Each railcars will present the DOE with flexibility to make use of the appropriate rail tools for the job,” a DOE spokesperson informed IEEE Spectrum.