Impacts Associated with Transfer of Spent Nuclear Fuel from Spent Fuel Storage Pools to Dry Storage After Five Years of Cooling

In order to decrease the risk of terrorism, it has been suggested that used nuclear fuel should be
moved to dry storage early, after five years cooling in the spent fuel pool. The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) has reviewed this issue and issued a white paper stating that it
did not believe such a measure was justified in light of additional security measures implemented
at nuclear plants and the impacts associated with the early movement of used fuel into dry
storage. Although EPRI agrees that moving spent fuel into dry storage after five years is not
justified, EPRI’s members requested a study be made of the impacts of doing so. This report
assesses the cost and risk impacts associated with transfer of spent nuclear fuel from spent fuel
storage pools to dry storage after five years of cooling.
Cost estimates are provided for the industry as a whole, for a representative pressurized water
reactor, for a representative boiling water reactor, and for a representative new plant. The “fiveyear
case” assumes that nuclear plants would take five years (2015 to 2019) to move all fuel
older than five years out of spent fuel pools and into dry storage. The five-year case is compared
to a current practice scenario, the “base case,” in which nuclear plants load used fuel into dry
storage only as necessary to accommodate fuel assemblies being removed from the core during
refueling outages.
Economic analysis estimates an increase in net present value cost for the early transfer of used
fuel into dry storage of $3.6 billion for the U.S. nuclear industry with the increase primarily
related to the additional capital costs for new casks and construction costs for the dry storage
facilities. The early movement of used fuel into dry storage would also have significant
radiological impacts. Worker radiation exposure in the United States would increase by an
estimated 507 person-rem over 60 years because of the additional handling of used fuel; and an
additional 711 dry storage packages would have to be handled compared to the base case,
increasing the risks associated with cask handling and the construction of additional dry storage
systems.
EPRI concludes that early movement of spent fuel older into dry storage would cause significant
economic and worker dose impacts while providing no safety benefit to the public.