Under § 51.50 , every environmental report prepared for the construction permit stage or early site permit stage or combined license stage of a light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor, and submitted after February 4, 1975, shall contain a statement concerning transportation of fuel and radioactive wastes to and from the reactor. That statement shall indicate that the reactor and this transportation either meet all of the conditions in paragraph (a) of this section or all of the conditions of paragraph (b) of this section.
Summary Table S-4-Environmental Impact of Transportation of Fuel and Waste to and From One Light-Water-Cooled Nuclear Power Reactor1
Normal Conditions of Transport
Environmental impact | |
Heat (per irradiated fuel cask in transit) | 250,000 Btu/hr. |
Weight (governed by Federal or State restrictions) | 73,000 lbs. per truck; 100 tons per cask per rail car. |
Traffic density: | |
Truck | Less than 1 per day. |
Rail | Less than 3 per month |
Exposed population | Estimated number of persons exposed | Range of doses to exposed individuals2 (per reactor year) | Cumulative dose to exposed population (per reactor year)3 |
Transportation workers | 200 | 0.01 to 300 millirem | 4 man-rem. |
General public: | |||
Onlookers | 1,100 | 0.003 to 1.3 millirem | 3 man-rem. |
Along Route | 600,000 | 0.0001 to 0.06 millirem |
Accidents in Transport
Environmental risk | |
Radiological effects | Small4 |
Common (nonradiological) causes | 1 fatal injury in 100 reactor years; 1 nonfatal injury in 10 reactor years; $475 property damage per reactor year. |
1 Data supporting this table are given in the Commission's "Environmental Survey of Transportation of Radioactive Materials to and from Nuclear Power Plants," WASH-1238, December 1972; and Supp. 1 of NUREG-75/038, April 1975. Both documents are available for inspection and copying at the Commission's Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland 20852 and may be obtained from National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161. The WASH-1238 is available from NTIS at a cost of $5.45 (microfiche, $2.25) and NUREG-75/038 is available at a cost of $3.25 (microfiche, $2.25).
2 The Federal Radiation Council has recommended that the radiation doses from all sources of radiation other than natural background and medical exposures should be limited to 5,000 millirem per year for individuals as a result of occupational exposure and should be limited to 500 millirem per year for individuals in the general population. The dose to individuals due to average natural background radiation is about 130 millirem per year.
3 Man-rem is an expression for the summation of whole body doses to individuals in a group. Thus, if each member of a population group of 1,000 people were to receive a dose of 0.001 rem (1 millirem), or if 2 people were to receive a dose of 0.5 rem (500 millirem) each, the total man-rem dose in each case would be 1 man-rem.
4 Athough the environmental risk of radiological effects stemming from transportation accidents is currently incapable of being numerically quantified, the risk remains small regardless of whether it is being applied to a single reactor or a multireactor site.
10 C.F.R. §51.52