The U.S. Department of Energy is pushing the envelope of its legal authority, and undertaking detailed logistical planning for the shipment of irradiated nuclear fuel from shutdown commercial atomic reactors.
The resultant study is entitled:
"Preliminary Evaluation of Removing Used Nuclear Fuel from Shutdown Sites," Fuel Cycle Research & Development, Prepared for U.S. Department of Energy, Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation Planning Project, Steven J. Maheras (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), et al., October 1, 2014, FCRD- NFST-2014-000091 Rev. 1, PNNL-22676 Rev. 4.
It is posted online at:
http://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-22676Rev4.pdf
The primary author, Steven J. Maheras, attended the Jan. 20, 2016 DOE "Consent-Based Siting" public meeting in Washington, DC, for opening de facto permanent parking lot dumps, as well as permament burial dumps. [Maheras also attended a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (on high-burnup fuel, including its transport), held in Knoxville, TN on February 17, 2016, as well as the DOE "Consent-Based Siting" meeting in Chicago on March 27, 2016.]
This report contains significant detail about transport logistics for "stranded" or "orphaned" waste. DOE and the nuclear power industry have used the excuse of "stranded" or "orphaned" irradiated nuclear fuel, at permanently shutdown and even entirely dismantled nuclear power plant sites, as a primary driver for launching Mobile Chernobyls, Floating Fukushimas, and Dirty Bombs on Wheels on the roads, rails, and waterways. The supposed justification for rushing into nonsensical "centralized interim storage" is to free up those decommissioned nuclear power plant sites for "unrestricted re-use." This emphasis on returning the sites to productive use ignores the residual hazardous radioactive contamination still present in soil, groundwater, fauna and flora, even after astronomically expensive decommissioning and "clean up" has been declared complete.