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The Energy Department awarded contracts today for the design, licensing and demonstration of containers for hauling spent nuclear fuel to the Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository.
Areva Federal Services and NAC International will build the "Transportation, Aging and Disposal" (TAD) canister system under separate five-year contracts worth up to almost $14 million if "all options are exercised," a DOE statement said. The canisters could be commercially available as early as 2013, the department added.
TAD was incorporated into the Yucca Mountain design in late 2005 to avoid the construction of several receiving facilities and to minimize workers' exposure to radioactive waste. DOE said up to 90 percent of spent nuclear fuel brought to the repository would be in TAD canisters packed and sealed at the generation site.
Spent fuel not transported in the canisters because of blending requirements or other issues would be placed in TAD canisters once it arrives, DOE said.
DOE said it would submit the repository license application -- which includes TAD -- to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next month. But there are still a few questions beyond the TAD design that need to be solved, according to a 2006 review by the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent federal agency that provides scientific and technical oversight for the repository project.
Among the issues the board cited is the need to amend current waste contracts with the utilities to accept spent fuel in canisters rather than "bare" fuel. It is risky, the board added, to design TAD canisters without even knowing if NRC would approve the concept.
The board has also repeatedly advised DOE to have a transportation contingency plan. TAD canisters rely on the construction of rail lines, but DOE has delayed the planning and construction of the lines because of budget cuts.
A DOE spokesman said the department is working to amend the waste contracts. The delay in the rail planning, he said, should not affect the TAD canisters.
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