Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE/EIS-0396

This report was written within the EU-project InSOTEC (www.insotec.eu) which aims to generate a better understanding of the complex interplay between the technical and the social in radioactive waste management and, in particular, in the design and implementation of geological disposal. In a first step 13 countries have been analysed in order to identify prevailing socio-technical challenges.

Letter to The Honorable Nancy L. Kassebaum from J. Dexter Peach, Director, U.S. General Accounting Office

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its regulations governing the disposal of high-level radioactive wastes in a proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The final rule implements the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) revised standards for doses that could occur after 10,000 years, but within the period of geologic stability.

Deep geologic repositories are being widely studied as the most favored method of disposal of nuclear waste. Scientists search for repository sites in salt, basalt, tuff and granite that are geologically and hydrologically suitable. The systematic evaluation of the safety and reliability of deep geologic disposal centers around the concept of interacting multiple barriers. The simplest element to describe of the geologic barrier is the physical isolation of the waste in a remote region at some depth within the rock unit.

The State of Mississippi has compiled this comment document on the Draft Environmental Assessment for the Richton Dome site, which is being considered by the Department of Energy for a possible nuclear waste repository. The comments in this document are based on contributions from state officials and state agencies, private contractor organizations, other state institutions and members of the public. DOE has of course received additional comments from members of the public and others in the public hearings on the subject that have been held in the State.

Isolation in a geologic setting has been the generally favored solution to the high-level radioactive waste (HLW) problem since a scientific basis for nuclear waste management began to be formulated over half a century ago. Although general features of suitable settings have been enumerated, quantitative measures of the safety of geologic isolation of HLW are challenging to devise and to implement.

The research reported here was initiated in January 1980 and performed for the Office of Policy and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Energy. The study arises from recognition by the DOE that the resolution of institutional issues is vital to the establishment of facilities to dispose of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). The disposal of HLW is an intensely difficult public policy problem.

The report begins with a consideration of the factors which have led to a growth in the use of dialogue processes, a clarification of key concepts and a classification of dialogue processes. A description of recent and current activities in Europe and North America is followed by discussion of the relationship of processes and contexts. This then leads to an identification of the key aims and evaluation criteria which will be used in the design of dialogue processes to be conducted in subsequent phases of the project.