Study of the Accident Environment During Sea Transport of Nuclear Material: Probabilistic Safety Analysis of Plutonium Transport from Europe to Japan

Abstract

This study describes and analyses the safety of a large number of plutonium transport operations for the international transport of plutonium by maritime cargo vessels for selected routes. The analysis centres on conventional cargo vessels and their accident history in order to provide an estimate of the probability of accident occurrences for such vessels. This is an ultraconservative study since the radioactive materials described in this study will, in all likelihood, be transported in purpose-built ships that incorporate many safety features not found in regular cargo vessels. Follow-on studies can use the information developed in this study in order to estimate the probability of accident occurrences involving purpose-built ships. The accident probabilities developed in this study, for conventional cargo vessels, provide a conservative bounding estimate of the probabilities for accidents involving purpose-built ships. This study estimates the safety of transporting plutonium from Europe to Japan. This includes estimating the probability of a severe transport accident during marine transport over three separate routes.