Spent Fuel Management in Spain

Transportation of the spent nuclear fuel is one of the current important matters in spent nuclear fuel management strategy. Not only technical challenges (fuel-specific or system related safety functions), but political, social, and economic decisions are involved, such us, where and when the spent fuel will be transported. The purpose of this paper, developed based on a presentation the author made at the 30th INMM Spent Fuel Mangement Seminar, is to show, in particular, Spanish spent fuel transport strategy from the industry point of view and some of the possible decisions to be considered by Spain. A quick update of the current spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management scenario in Spain is provided, describing the inventory, the estimation of the total amount of spent fuel over a period of forty years of nuclear power plant operation, and different spent nuclear fuel dry storage independent installations (ISFSI). As is well known, the dry storage lifetime of spent fuel casks is limited to forty to fifty years, so what does Spain do with spent fuel afterwards? The answer to this question is directly linked to the strategy recently decided and approved for the near future, the ATC (Almacn Temporal Centralizado), the Centralized or Consolidated Interim Storage Facility. Spent fuel will be transported to the ATC a few years from now. Transportation of all the spent fuel in Spain has to be considered, this means intact, undamaged, and damaged fuel. Classification of the spent fuel is critical, as all of the spent fuel that is being loaded in a cask should be able to be transported. Intact or undamaged fuel is not a concern, but damaged fuel is different. In this case, fuel pathologies will be considered to establish a criterion for classification. This criterion will allow the industry to choose from different options in the design of the damagedfuel cans. These damaged-fuel cans will be compatible with the transportation casks and the ATC canisters.