Final Report on Geological Studies Pertinent to Site Suitability Criteria for High-Level Waste Repositories, Purchase Order No. 6562803

From the very early stages of the nuclear waste management<br/>program, salt has been advocated as the most suitable geologic<br/>medium in which to store high-level radioactive wastes (HLW).<br/>The primary reason for this is based on the fact that, relative<br/>to other rock types, salt has a low yield strength with the<br/>result that, at the confining pressures that exist at depths<br/>of a few thousand feet, salt will deform plastically. The consequence<br/>of this phenomenon is that fractures, along which escape<br/>of radioactive wastes might be possible, may not exist at<br/>the depths proposed for the HLW storage repositories.