The Department of Energy on Wednesday started market research for high-profile, public demonstrations of the many severe kinds of abuse transport systems for spent nuclear fuel are designed to withstand.
The agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy on Wednesday released a request for information about a wide range of things it might need to conduct what it calls a Package Performance Demonstration that could “help build public trust and confidence in the safety of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) transportation casks and SNF transportation by rail, heavy-haul track and barge.”
To build public trust, the office plans to drop, drown and light on fire containers of the type that would be used to transport spent fuel to a future government-owned interim storage site from power plants across the country, according to the request for information.
Responses are due Sept. 30.
According to the RFI, DOE is looking for everything it needs to conduct what are sometimes called “regulatory tests:” demonstrations that containers are sturdy enough to meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements.
Among others, DOE wants to hear from potential suppliers of test sites or facilities and from anyone who could rig up the test casks with data-gather sensors and capture high-speed video of the simulated accidents the agency hopes to stage.
According to the request for information, the abuses DOE could inflict on the test casks are:
- Dropping it from almost 30 feet in the air onto a hard surface.
- Dropping it from three feet onto a steel bar to test for penetration.
- Leaving it for 30 minutes in a fire hot enough to melt the kind of glass sometimes used for laboratory test tubes and beakers.
- Putting it underwater for one hour at a depth of almost 660 feet, where the pressure of the water would be more than 20 times greater than the pressure of the atmosphere at sea level.
DOE did not say in Wednesday’s request for information when it wanted to conduct these tests.
In its 2025 budget request, the agency said it planned to “initiate” the acquisition of a cask that could be used in these tests and “establish a testing plan.” The Office of Nuclear Energy’s Integrated Waste Management System subprogram would pay for the tests.
In a 2025 DOE budget bill that made it to the House floor but did not get a vote before Representatives left Washington for a month-long summer recess, House appropriators proposed cutting the Integrated Waste Management System subprogram by more than half, year-over-year. The White House had asked for flat funding of $53 million.
The Senate Appropriations Committee was set to mark up its own version of DOE’s 2025 budget on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time in Washington.