United States
In the United States, the acceptability of the design of each cask is judged against Title 10, Part 71, of the Code of Federal Regulations (other nations' shipping casks, possibly excluding Russia's, are designed and tested to similar standards (International Atomic Energy Agency "Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material" No. TS-R-1)). The designs must demonstrate (possibly by computer modelling) protection against radiological release to the environment under all four of the following hypothetical accident conditions, designed to encompass 99% of all accidents:
- A 9 meter (30 ft) free fall on to an unyielding surface
- A puncture test allowing the container to free-fall 1 meter (about 39 inches) onto a steel rod 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) in diameter
- A 30-minute, all-engulfing fire at 800 degrees Celsius (1475 degrees Fahrenheit)
- An 8-hour immersion under 0.9 meter (3 ft) of water.
- Further, an undamaged package must be subjected to a one-hour immersion under 200 meters (655 ft) of water.
In addition, between 1975 and 1977 Sandia National Laboratories conducted full-scale crash tests on spent nuclear fuel shipping casks. Although the casks were damaged, none would have leaked.
Although the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has the primary responsibility for regulating the safe transport of radioactive materials in the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires that licensees and carriers involved in spent fuel shipments:
- Follow only approved routes;
- Provide armed escorts for heavily populated areas;
- Use immobilization devices;
- Provide monitoring and redundant communications;
- Coordinate with law enforcement agencies before shipments; and
- Notify in advance the NRC and States through which the shipments will pass.
Since 1965, approximately 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel have been transported safely over the U.S.'s highways, waterways, and railroads.
Read more about this topic: Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipping Cask
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)