Transcript Document

Safety and Licensing of
Spent Fuel Storage Facilities
Vonna Ordaz, U.S. NRC
Presented at
International Conference on Management of
Spent Fuel from Nuclear Power Reactors
June 1, 2010
NRC Dry Storage Program
• Specific License
• General License
– Dry Cask Certification
• Review Guidance
– Standard Review Plan for Dry Cask Storage
– Standard Review Plan for Dry Storage
Facilities
– Interim Staff Guidance Documents
– Regulatory Guides
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Chemical Interactions
• Point Beach hydrogen ignition event
• Trojan pool turbidity
• First time use of materials and processes
– Thorough engineering evaluation
– Consider testing prior to use
• Share information and think broadly
• NRC developed Materials Review chapter
for Standard Review plans
3
Light-Weight Transfer Cask
• Removed most water prior to lid welding
• Higher fuel temperature at start of vacuum
drying
• Invalidated design-basis calculation for
maximum time allowed for vacuum drying
• Drafting new Interim Staff Guidance
document on Health Physics
4
Damaged Fuel Assessment
• Fuel must be retrievable after dry storage
• Visual inspection of fuel proved ineffective
• Fuel stored in non-oxidizing atmosphere
• Testing to determine fuel state
– Spent fuel sipping
– Reactor off-gas release rate test
– Ultrasonic inspection
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Damaged Fuel Assessment
Lessons Learned
• Revision to ISG-2, “Retrievability“
– Added assembly retrievability
– Handling by normal means
– Remain structurally sound
– In secondary canister if assembly cannot be
shown to be undamaged
6
ISFSI License Renewals
• 20-year license term with renewals
• Initial two licenses issued in 1986 and third in
1990
• Perform aging management review
• Lessons learned from license renewals
– Developed rulemaking to increase the licenses and
certificates to 40 years
– Developed Standard Review Plan for Renewal of
Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation
Licenses and Dry Cask Storage System Certificates
of Compliance”
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Revisiting the Paradigm
for Storage and Transport
• SRM-COMDEK-09-0001
• Thorough review of spent fuel storage and
transport regulatory programs
– Research needed to bolster the technical bases
– Risk-informed and performance-based methods
– Incentives to industry to use state-of-the-art
technology
– Harmonizing with international standards
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Conclusions
• Strive for continuous improvement
• Review methods and guidance are not
stagnant
• Changes to guidance come from experiences
• Staff Requirements Memorandum - Revisiting
the Paradigm on Spent Fuel Storage and
Transport (SRM-COMDEK-09-0001)
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