A shipment of HIFAR spent fuel destined for the United States is now safely on its way, ANSTO said today. The spent fuel repatriated to the United States will become the property of the US on arrival in America and there will be no waste from this shipment returning to Australia.
In all, 330 solid spent fuel elements left ANSTO and were loaded onto a special purpose cargo ship designed to carry radioactive material, safely and securely packed in casks that have undergone rigorous testing to ensure they cannot be ruptured, even in the most severe accident.
“This is the second shipment of fuel from ANSTO to the United States,” said ANSTO’s Chief of Operations, Dr Ron Cameron. There will be no return of waste from any reprocessing of spent fuel sent to the US.
“ANSTO staff and regulatory bodies ensured the safe and secure packaging of the spent fuel elements,” Dr Cameron continued. “The shipment was conducted under strict international and national security and safety standards.
“Over the past few weeks, ANSTO has worked closely with police, emergency services, port authorities, stevedores, our regulatory bodies ARPANSA and ASNO and other relevant parties to prepare for this shipment,” Dr Cameron continued.
“Relevant local councils and stakeholders were informed prior to shipment. However the exact route and timetable was not provided for obvious security reasons.
“The level of radioactivity detectible outside the heavily shielded casks is very low. For example, if you stood next to a cask for one week, 24 hours a day, you’d only receive half the amount of radiation you are exposed to every year from naturally occurring sources,” he said.
Since 1963, seven shipments of ANSTO’s spent fuel have travelled to various places around the world without incident. This is the eighth shipment. Internationally, there have been over 7,000 shipments of spent fuel since 1971.
There has never been an incident resulting in the release of radioactivity.
“The 330 spent fuel elements in this shipment represent about nine years of reactor operations, and during that time around four and a half million patient treatments have been produced,” said Dr Cameron. “This amounts to a significant contribution to the healthcare of all Australians.”
The transportation on the fuel follows a Federal Government decision in September 1997 not to establish a reprocessing facility at ANSTO but instead to ship all spent fuel overseas.
“The shipment is part of our planned process of meeting the expressed desires of the local community for the reduction of spent fuel stored at our site,” said Dr Cameron.
“The Department of Environment and Heritage, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office and ARPANSA each approved arrangements for the shipment,” concluded Dr Cameron
Published: 18/12/2006