IAEA working group sets out eight fixes for refused nuclear shipments
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readRadioactive material moves in more than 20 million packages a year - fuel for reactors, isotopes for hospitals, sources for industrial inspection and research. A share of those shipments are refused or held up by carriers, ports or authorities even where every rule has been met, and the IAEA's Denial of Shipment Working Group has now published a white paper on what to do about it. World Nuclear News reports that it was presented at a side event of the agency's 70th General Conference in Vienna.
The paper, finalised in April and shared with member states, lists six main causes: perception and cultural factors, gaps in awareness, regulatory complexity, a lack of harmonisation together with administrative gaps, insurance and economic barriers, and problems with carriers and logistics. The consequences it names are harm to patient care, higher costs, operational delays that can create safety or security risks of their own, and the risk of regulatory non-compliance. It proposes eight mitigation measures, each matched to the stakeholders best placed to act - member states, operators and industry, or international organisations.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the meeting that denials and delays continue even involving companies in countries that support the transport, calling it a problem in communication that should not exist. Canada's permanent representative in Vienna, Alison Grant, connected delayed shipments with delayed cancer treatment and postponed scans. Speakers from the World Nuclear Association and the World Nuclear Transport Institute backed the work, with the association welcoming the revival of national focal points - named experts in each country who help resolve blocked shipments.
The working group was set up for four years. At its final meeting in December it is to settle a governance framework for continuing oversight, and the meeting heard that responsibility now rests increasingly with member states.
What it means
Denial of shipment is an unusual problem because it is rarely a legal refusal. A shipping line declines a class of cargo, a port adds a procedure, an insurer prices the risk out, and a package that complies with the IAEA transport regulations still does not move. That is why several of the causes in the paper are about perception and awareness rather than rules.
For the nuclear fuel cycle, the issue compounds as supply chains are rebuilt across more countries. A regulatory regime that is harmonised on paper but applied unevenly at the point of loading creates exactly the delays the paper describes. The working group itself says the problem cannot be eliminated, only reduced; the December meeting will show whether member states take on the continuing work.