Legalectric

Oh here we go again! I’ve been rummaging through files, trying to go paperless, don’t cha know (before the back half of the house falls over) and for some reason kept my dry cask files. I figure I’m one of the few people on earth who have all this … info… yeah, that’s it, information.

So far, not much in the docket:

There’s this thing about the TN-40 casks that I learned way back when, at the first NSP “Task Force” meeting in December, 1994. TN-40s have aluminum seals.

Seals need to be replaced. That was established way back when in 1994. While learning about the cask parts, I was fresh off a trip to CA, was making $$ to open my Farmington office, and those trailer seals are always leaking, so while sitting around waiting for a load, I got in the habit of taking the hub cap off, scraping it down, and putting a ring of bright silicon in there, putting the hub back on, and filling it up with gear oil. So these seals, I ask, when do the need to be replaced? Per NSP, they need to be replaced every 20 years. Well, at that meeting, we also learned that there was no unloading procedure/protocol! And how does one replace a seal without unloading it, or at least taking the cap off… in the pool, right?

About seals (note this is for a TN-68, but you get the idea), it’s not rocket science, only nuclear waste, 4 & 5 are the seals, with seal alternatives below at the end:

Have any of the TN-40 seals been replaced? They’ve been loaded for over 20 years now. Inquiring minds need to know.

Have any of the casks been unloaded? They’ll need to be unloaded to put the assemblies in another cask. Remember the 3 Stooges unloading of the TN-29P at INEL?

Commerce-DER refers to a 2009 proceeding to allow use of TransNuclear transportation frame to transport TN-40s so they’d never need to be unloaded prior to transport. What’s changed that they want to do this now? More capital expense to get a good ROI as part of their new business plan?

From TN, here’s the details on that transport option:

https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1002/ML100210335.pdf

I can’t think of a worse idea than putting casks containing embrittled and fragile old spent-fuel assemblies, and dumping them on their sides, putting the container thing around, popping on a train, and rolling down the tracks to who knows where.

Details? Can’t get there from here:

Environmentally friendly seal options: