6-1 Status of Reactor Site Storage Systems for Used Nuclear Fuel
SENES Consultants Ltd, ON CAN
This report provides brief descriptions of used fuel storage systems
at commercial reactor power sites in Canada. In addition, selected
comments are provided on a variety of environmental and regulatory
issues relevant to reactor site used fuel management systems. Current
practice in Canada is to allow used fuel (i.e., fuel which has been
irradiated in a reactor) to cool in used fuel bays (essentially
water-filled pools) for ten years or more, and then to transfer the
fuel to above-ground dry storage. While Ontario Power Generation is the
largest producer of used fuel, the other nuclear utilities Hydro Quebec
and New Brunswick Power also produce significant quantities of used
fuel. Additional, but much smaller, quantities of used fuel have been
produced from research activities by Atomic Energy of Canada and
various research reactors in Canada. Recent Environmental Impact
Statements to assess used fuel dry storage at Ontario Power
Generation’s Darlington and Pickering (Phase II) sites demonstrate the
increasing use of dry storage at reactor sites in Canada.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and Ontario Power Generation
(OPG) began to investigate dry storage alternatives in the 1970’s. AECL
has more than 25 years of experience with dry storage systems. The
current design life of dry storage containers is 50 years; however, the
actual life of dry storage containers is thought to be 100 years or
more. In the event that centralized facilities for the management of
used fuel are not available on a timely basis, extended use of dry
storage would provide a reliable method of managing used fuel in the
longer term. In such an event, regulatory and public communication
issues would need to be revisited.
Author Biography
Dr. Douglas Chambers
Dr. Douglas Chambers, Vice-President and Director of Radiation and
Risk Studies at SENES. He has been a member of the Canadian delegation
to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Ionizing
Radiation (UNSCEAR) since 1998. In 1993, Dr. Chambers was first
appointed as a member of the former Advisory Committee on Radiological
Protection (ACRP) which advised the Atomic Energy Control Board (now
the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) Advisory Committee. He was
Chairman of the Canadian Standards Association, Technical Committee on
Environmental Radiation Protection for more than 10 years and is a
member of the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on
Risk Assessment. Dr. Chambers is also a member of Committee #85 on
radon of the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection and
Measurements (NCRP). He is currently consultant to UNSCEAR on exposure
to radon and potential associated health effects.
Dr. Chambers is well recognized in Canada and internationally for
his work in environmental radioactivity, pathways analysis, radioactive
waste management and risk assessment.
Among other activities, Dr. Chambers has directed or carried out
evaluations for all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. Dr. Chambers has
also carried out numerous studies on radioactive wastes in Canada, the
United States and Overseas.
Examples of recent work include assisting the Federal German
Environment Ministry (BMU) and the States of Saxony and Thüringia with
the decommissioning of former uranium mining and processing facilities,
the re-evaluation of radon progeny exposures to underground miners, the
development of a regulatory guide for UF6 dispersion models for the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the development of metrics for risk
comparisons, and the evaluation of risks to lower form biota.
Dr. Chamber has pioneered the development of tools for uncertainty
analysis, dose reconstruction and radiation protection. He has
contributed to more than 100 technical papers and presentations and has
appeared at numerous commissions and inquiries on environmental and
occupational radiological studies in Canada and the U.S. In 1997, the
Canadian Nuclear Association recognized Dr. Chambers’ outstanding
achievements in environmental radioactivity with the award of the W.B.
Lewis medal. Dr. Chambers was the 2001 Morgan Lecturer for the Health
Physics Society.
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