may be limited by its contracts with owners of spent fuel” (ibid., p. 18). One problem is that “in many cases, the places in the queue correspond to quantities of spent fuel that would fill less than three large rail containers,”which was OCRWM’s plan (based on rail industry recommendations) for the size of rail shipments (ibid.). The GAO calculated that, for the “12 spent fuel owners with the largest quantities of spent fuel,” all the spent fuel could be shipped in 576 shipments if OCRWM adhered strictly to the shipping queue specified in the standard contract. This number could be reduced to 479 — a 17-percent reduction — if OCRWM did not follow the queue but instead filled each cask completely (ibid.). Increasing the number of casks per train to five would result in nearly a 50-percent reduction in the number of shipments (ibid., p. 19). In its report in 2006, the NAS also found the shipping queue to be limiting, describing “the order for accepting commercial spent fuel” as “not designed with the transportation program in mind” (ibid.). Like the GAO, the NAS observed that, because “[s]ome of the allocations are not large enough to fill even a single transportation package,…there could be a large number of partially filled packages transported to Yucca Mountain” (ibid., p. 239). The result would be to “greatly increase the number of total shipments to the repository” (ibid.). The NAS concluded that the shipping queue would provide “little opportunity for optimizing the transportation program to reduce the total number of shipments or the need for maintaining large numbers of transportation routes and for emergency responder training” (ibid., pp. 240-41). The NAS also noted the benefits of having OCRWM ship “older fuel first,” which could be precluded if the program adhered to the existing acceptance order (see the section on Oldest Fuel First ). The NAS recommended that, if OCRWM were unable to negotiate successfully with Purchasers in order to maximize the efficiency of the shipping queue, “Congress should consider legislative remedies” (ibid., p. 20).
system, namely the terms of the Standard Disposal Contract that OCRWM has entered into with all utilities that own commercial spent fuel. The contracts give OCRWM the authority to establish the shipping queue, based on the information provided by “Purchasers,” or utilities, regarding the date and quantity of spent fuel removed from their reactors. In essence, each bundle of spent fuel taken out of a reactor gets a place in line based on the date it was removed. Under the terms of the contract, the Purchaser has the responsibility to“identify all SNF and/or HLW the Purchaser wishes to deliver to DOE beginning sixty-three (63) months”before shipment (10 CFR 961.11, Article V, Part B, paragraph 1). The Purchaser has until 12 months prior to shipment, however, to“submit to DOE final delivery schedules” (10 CFR 961.11, Article V, Part C). Purchasers “have the right to exchange approved delivery commitment schedules with parties to other contracts with DOE…; provided, however , that DOE shall, in advance, have the right to approve or disapprove, in its sole discretion, any such exchanges” (10 CFR 961.11, Article V, Part E). Purchasers have to provide an exchange request to OCRWM at least six months prior to delivery, with OCRWM allowed 30 days to either approve or disapprove the exchange (ibid.). By these terms, OCRWMmay not know for certain where it will be picking up spent fuel for transport until five months prior to shipping. Complicating this situation further is the consolidation of the nuclear industry since the time the contract was first written. Instead of identifying for shipment the specific quantity of spent fuel at the particular site that “holds” the place in the shipping queue, a Purchaser could choose to ship an identical quantity of spent fuel located at a reactor hundreds of miles away, affecting a completely different set of states along the shipping route. In 2003, the GAO recommended that OCRWM limit the number of shipments as a way to reduce the risk of terrorism against shipments (GAO 2003, p. 17). The GAO acknowledged, however, that OCRWM’s “ability to minimize the total number of shipments
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