The final shipment of HIFAR spent fuel to be sent to France is now safely on its way, ANSTO announced today. In all, 276 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 last shipment to go to France,” said ANSTO’s Chief of Operations, Dr Ron Cameron. “There remain 387 spent fuel rods and 82 new fuel elements still to be used, which will be sent to the United States in a few years time.
Spent fuel sent to the US will not be reprocessed and returned to Australia.
“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 body ARPANSA 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 would be exposed to in a year from naturally occurring sources,” he said.
Since 1963, six shipments of ANSTO’s spent fuel have travelled to various places around the world without incident. This is the seventh 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 276 spent fuel elements in this shipment represent about seven years of reactor operations, and during that time around three million patient treatments have been produced,” said Dr Cameron. “This amounts to a significant contribution to the healthcare of all Australians.”
The transportation of the fuel follows a Federal Government decision in September 1997 not to establish a
reprocessing facility at ANSTO but instead to ship all used fuel overseas.
“The shipment is part of 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 shipment, heading for La Hague, France, plant of Compagnie Generale des Materies Nucleaire (COGEMA), was the fourth made under the terms of a contract signed by ANSTO and COGEMA in January 1999.
“Environment Australia, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office and ARPANSA each approved arrangements for the shipment,” concluded Dr Cameron.