Moving nuclear waste

However, critics point out that the US has never conducted the full range of structural-integrity tests on full-sized casks, analysts say. Instead, one-quarter to half-scale models have been tested. And Nevada state officials say there are so many uncertainties surrounding transportation of waste that it's tough to gauge potential effects or to plan for emergencies. Next year, the US Nuclear Regulatory Agency is planning full-scale tests..

Over the past four decades, the United States has sent the vast majority of some 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel across the nation's highways and railways. (Some has traveled by barge.)

That number is set to skyrocket when a permanent repository is scheduled to open, perhaps by 2010. According to the US Energy Department, the number of shipments could grow to between 15,000 and 45,000 at that point. The amount depends on whether the material is trucked, or shipped by rail in larger canisters.

To some, the likelihood of a serious accident will rise along with an increase in shipments. Nevada officials doubt enough rail access is available, forcing more casks onto trucks. They say shipments could number as high as 100,000.

Others, however, note that worldwide, the flow of high-level radioactive waste already has run into the tens of thousands of tons.

"Over the history of this industry, more spent fuel has been shipped internationally than will be shipped to Yucca Mountain," says Jack Edlow, who heads Edlow International, a nuclear-materials transport company. The shipments have moved "safely and securely, without the loss of a single life."

Some of these international shipments come from foreign research reactors, whose owners have sent spent fuel to the US for disposal under the Atoms for Peace program. Many other shipments originate in countries whose laws and policies governing the use of nuclear energy require that spent reactor fuel be recycled.

Not every country has reprocessing facilities, however. Japan ships its fuel to France for recycling, as do several European countries. Britain also reprocesses nuclear fuel. Russia reprocesses some of its spent fuel, and is deciding whether to market itself as a host for an international commercial nuclear-waste repository.

Reprocessing has had a checkered history in the US. It yields plutonium, which can be used as reactor fuel. Following India's explosion of a nuclear device in 1974, the US grew concerned about the likelihood plutonium could be diverted to build weapons. And the large number of shipments to and from reprocessing plants could be vulnerable to theft or sabotage. In 1977, President Carter banned civil reprocessing in the US. President Reagan lifted the ban in 1981, but by then reprocessing had lost its economic luster. Last year, President Bush recommended the government put renewed focus on reprocessing.

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