Approaches to overall architecture of transport systems for spent fuel and high level waste: examples from Europe and Canada

As over the years, the nuclear industry worldwide was developing and building a clean, efficient and safe energy supply, it also built along the essential link for any global industry, transportation. The early approach at IAEA of creating international recommendations that then would be integrated into national laws came as a blessing to the structuration of transport This enabled a clear, recognized safety regime that has a proven world track record of outstanding safety. It also gave us a common language, and one may say that within the nuclear community, there is indeed a nuclear transport community. Because of steady and large flows of material for the nuclear cycles, countries where reprocessing of spent fuel takes place had to implement early on large transport structures and organizations. In most countries where reprocessing is not yet the main path for spent fuel management, like in the USA and in Canada, large scale transport for the back-end is still at the inception stage. Today the industry must demonstrate that waste is properly managed and that the peaceful use of nuclear energy delivers indeed the best economic and environmental value. Transport has to answer a part of this challenge if the industry is to grow further. The paper will illustrate how the current continental Europe systems of transport progressively evolved so as to make daily deliveries of spent nuclear fuel to the COGEMA La Hague reprocessing plant a strong, dependable and effective system. It also shows that this experience is in the background of a major study ordered by Ontario Power Generation from COGEMA Logistics, as a contribution to the work of the trust now examining approaches to long-term management of spent fuel in Canada. (author)