Speaker
Description
The transport of radioactive materials can play an important role in the implementation of a sustainable waste management strategy. Thereby, the assessment of national authorities ensures the compliance with transport regulations in order to provide for nuclear safety. This interrelationship of sustainability and transport safety can be exemplified in the context of the dismantling of nuclear power plants and associated transports. There, large contaminated objects like steam generators are transported to external companies where the radioactive materials are properly packaged while non-radioactive metals can possibly be recycled. This approach allows to reuse valuable materials (economically sustainable) and to realize remediation at the former power plant site (environmentally sustainable) which then can be used for other purposes (socially sustainable).
The requirements for the transport of large contaminated objects (SCO-III) were adopted in the latest revision of the IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (SSR-6, Rev. 1), which have come into force in Germany in 2021/2022 via the respective modal regulations. The purpose of this paper is to briefly describe these new requirements and our experience in the corresponding safety assessment, which is to enable the safe transport of radioactive material so that decommissioning can take place with sustainability for the economy, people and the environment.
