APPENDIX II

REGULATIONS AND GUIDANCE FOR SPENT FUEL STORAGE AND TRANSPORT

Guidebook on Spent Fuel Storage Options and Systems

Regulation and guidance are provided at both an international level and a national level. The following sections provide a summary of the relevant IAEA regulations and guidance as well as regulations and guidance provided by other international bodies and national regulatory authorities.

II.1.  IAEA regulations and guidance related to spent fuel storage

As illustrated in Fig. 71, the IAEA Safety Standards provide the fundamental principles, requirements and recommendations to ensure nuclear safety (see Appendix V for those relevant to spent fuel storage). There are three tiers of publications:

FIG. 71.  IAEA Safety Standards hierachy.FIG. 71.  IAEA Safety Standards hierachy. 

2.  Relevant regulations or guidance by other international bodies


II.2.1.  Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection

The International Commission on Radiological Protection is an independent, international non-governmental organization with a mission to provide recommendations and guidance on radiological protection for ionizing radiation. IAEA takes account of these recommendations when developing safety standards.


II.2.2.  EU directives and reports

Council Directive 2011/70/Euratom on the management of SNF and radioactive waste [72] establishes a community framework for ensuring responsible and safe management of spent nuclear fuel to avoid imposing undue burdens on future generations.


II.2.3.  Western European Nuclear Regulators’ Association

The Western European Nuclear Regulators’ Association issues safety reference levels for numerous areas, including radioactive waste and SNF storage [73]. The safety reference levels build upon the essential basis of safety established by the IAEA Safety Standards and offer more facility specific requirements for developing national regulations. These levels focus on four different areas of safety: safety management, design, operation and safety verification.

II.3.  National regulations and guides on spent fuel storage and transportation

All countries have national regulations and guides. Examples are given in Table 9.

TABLE 9. EXAMPLES OF NATIONAL REGULATIONS AND GUIDES BY MEMBER STATES
Member State Regulation/Guide Ref.
France IRSN 2019-00181 Storage of nuclear spent fuel: concepts and safety issues (June 2018) [74]
  IRSN 2019-00903 Assessment of dry storage possibilities for MOX or enriched reprocessed uranium spent fuels (April 2019) [75]
Germany ESK Guidelines for dry cask storage of spent fuel and heat-generating waste (revised version of 2013-06-10) [76]
Japan Ordinance on Activity of Interim Storage of Spent Fuel, Ministry of Trade, Economy, and Industry, revised by Nuclear Regulation Authority (2014)  
  Statement on dry cask on-site storage of spent fuel, Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan (1992, revised in 2006)  
UK NS-TAST-GD-081 (Rev. 3) Safety Aspects Specific to Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel, ONR, Bootle (June 2019)  
USA NUREG-2215 — Standard Review Plan for Spent Fuel Dry Storage Systems and Facilities (2020) [19]
  NUREG-2214 — Managing Ageing Processes in Storage (MAPS) Report (2019) [77]
  NUREG-1927 — Standard Review Plan for Renewal of Specific Licenses and Certificates of Compliance for Dry Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel (Rev. 1, 2016) [55]
  Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation Interim Staff Guidance, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (web site) [78]

II.4.  Regulations for spent fuel transport

SNF has been safely and routinely transported for over 60 years, covering a distance of millions of kilometres without any significant incidents. Spent fuel transportation is carried out within the international regulatory framework based upon the IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, first published in 1961 and periodically revised. These regulations ensure safety and protect people, property and the environment from harmful effects of ionizing radiation during the transport of radioactive material. The current edition was published in 2018 and is identified as SSR-6 (Rev. 1) 2018 edition [50]. Figure 47 shows the international transport safety regulatory framework.

FIG. 72.  The connections within the international transport safety regulatory framework.

FIG. 72.  The connections within the international transport safety regulatory framework. 

For radioactive material, the transport safety regulatory requirements are set out in the IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, SSR-6 [50], which are adopted into the United Nations Model Regulations [79] for radioactive material and classified as Class 7 dangerous goods.

The United Nations Model Regulations are subsequently adopted into the global transport regulations’ International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code [80] for transport of radioactive material by sea, and the International Civil Aviation Organization Technical Instructions [81] for transport by air. These two documents are mandatory in all States.

There are no global land transport regulations, however. To create a globally consistent set of transport safety regulatory requirements, States create and implement national land transport regulations that reflect SSR-6 requirements, while a small number of States adopt SSR-6 directly.

Regional agreements based on the United Nations Model Regulations are also created, with the example of the European agreements for transport by road [82], rail [83] and inland waterways [84] which are mandatory for States that are signatories to those agreements.

The transport regulations for the transport of radioactive material by sea make a distinction in the requirements for SNF from other radioactive material as shown in Fig. 73.

FIG. 73.  The International transport safety regulatory framework for transport by sea.

FIG. 73.  The International transport safety regulatory framework for transport by sea. 

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, the SOLAS Convention [85], Part-A, Regulation 3, requires the carriage of dangerous goods in packaged form to be in compliance with the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code. The code for radioactive material, Class 7 dangerous goods, reflects the SSR-6 requirements that spent nuclear reactor fuel is to be transported in a Type B fissile package design that meets prescribed requirements and performance testing criterion. In addition, the SOLAS Convention Chapter VII, Part D, prescribes other requirements for spent nuclear fuel, namely: