COMMERCIAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FEASIBILITY WITH THE UNIVERSAL CANISTER CONCEPT

A Program Research and Development Announcement (PRDA) was
initiated by DOE to solicit from industry new and novel ideas for
improvements in the nuclear waste management system. GA Technologies
Inc. was contracted to study a system utilizing a universal canister
which could be loaded at the reactor and used throughout the waste
management system.

The proposed canister was developed with the objective of meeting
the mission requirements with maximum flexibility and at minimum cost.
Canister criteria were selected from a thorough analysis of the spent
fuel inventory, and canister concepts were evaluated along with the
shipping and storage casks to determine the maximum payload. Engineering
analyses were performed on various casklcanister combinations. One
important criterion was the interchangeability of the canisters between
truck and rail cask systems.

A canister was selected which could hold three PWR intact fuel elements
or up to eight consolidated PWR fuel elements. One canister could
be shipped in an overweight truck cask or six in a rail cask. Economic
analysis showed a cost savings of the reference system under consideration
at that time.