This Addendum to NUREG-1437, Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, May 1996 supplements the analysis reported in Section 6.3 "Transportation," and especially Section 6.3.2, "Table S-4-Environmental Impacts of Transportation of Fuel and Waste to and From One Light-Water-Cooled Nuclear Power Reactor." This document addresses two questions generically. The first question is whether the environmental impact values contained in Table S-4 are still appropriate for use in license renewal reviews if spent fuel is transported to a single destination such as the candidate repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, even though the values in Table S-4 were developed from data reflecting spent fuel shipments to several destinations. The NRC staff found that the cumulative impacts of SNF transport to a single repository are small for all plants shipping spent fuel with characteristics specified in 10 CFR 51.52(c), Summary Table S-4 and for spent fuel enriched up to 5 percent uranium-235 with average burnup for the peak rod to current levels approved by NRC up to 62,000 MWd/MTU, provided higher burnup fuel is cooled for at least 5 years before being shipped off site.
The second question is whether the environmental impact values contained in Table S-4 are still appropriate for use in license renewal reviews given that applicants will be shipping spent fuel that is more highly enriched and irradiated longer than is accounted for in the analysis to develop Table S-4. The NRC staff analyzed the extent to which transportation of higher burnup SNF would cause impacts that exceed those identified in Table S-4 for incident-free transport, and for hypothetical accidents causing release of radionuclides. The NRC staff found that even under conservative higher burnup conditions, the impacts of SNF transport would not exceed those identified in Table S-4. Consequently, the NRC staff concludes that Table S-4 applies to spent fuel enriched up to 5 percent uranium-235 with average burnup for the peak rod to current levels approved by NRC up to 62,000 MWd/MTU, provided higher burnup fuel is cooled for at least 5 years before being shipped off site.
The conclusions reached in these assessments provide the bases for revising the findings and the category designation of the Transportation issue in Table 9.1, "Summary of findings on NEPA issues for license renewal of nuclear power plants," of NUREG-1437. The environmental impacts associated with these issues are applicable to all plants, the impacts are small, mitigation has been considered, and additional plant -specific mitigation measures are not warranted. The findings and category designation for the transportation issue (NUREG-1437, p. 9-15) is revised as follows:
| Issue | Sections | Category | Findings |
| Transportation | Addendum 1, 2.4 3.3 | 1 | SMALL. The impacts of transporting spent fuel enriched up to 5 percent uranium-235 with average burnup for the peak rod to current levels approved by NRC up to 62,000 MWd/MTU and the cumulative impacts of transporting high-level waste to a single repository, such as Yucca Mountain, Nevada are found to be consistent with the impact values contained in 10 CFR 51.52(c), Summary Table S-4--Environmental Impact of Transportation of Fuel and Waste to and from One Light-Water-Cooled Nuclear Power Reactor. If fuel enrichment or burnup conditions are not met, the applicant must submit an assessment of the implications for the environmental impact values reported in §51.52. |