Fighting Nuclear Waste at Skull Valley
Fighting Nuclear Waste at Skull Valley
Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues
Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has promulgated amendments to its public health and safety standards for radioactive material stored or disposed of in the potential repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada (40 CFR Part 197). Section 801 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 [(EnPA, Public Law 102-486, 42 U.S.C. § 10141 n. (1994)] directed EPA to develop these standards.
The Central Savannah River Area Community Team (The CSRA Team) is pleased to submit this report in<br/>fulfillment of its requirements under DOE Financial Assistance Agreement DE-FG07-07ID14794.
Presented to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future Subcommittee on Disposal
On September 30, 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the long-awaited revision to its 2001 Public Health and Safety Standard for the proposed Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. While the issuance of the standard allows the Nuclear<br/>Regulatory Commission (NRC) to issue its final conforming standards and move forward toward a final license decision for the facility, EPA’s standard raises several unprecedented regulatory issues and is likely to be further challenged in court.
In the November 1989 Report to Congress on Reassessment of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program (DOE/RW-0247), the Secretary of Energy announced an initiative for developing a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility that is to start spent-fuel acceptance in 1998. This facility, which will be licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), will receive spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and provide a limited amount of storage for this spent fuel.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman today announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking expressions of interest from the public and private sectors by March 31, 2006, to propose and evaluate sites suitable for demonstrating advanced recycling technologies under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP).
As nuclear power assumes an increasingly important role in meeting the nation's requirements for electrical energy, the quantity of radioactive wastes will also increase. The wastes of primary concern -<br/>designated "high-level" and "alpha" wastes - contain radioactive nuclides that decay so slowly as to require that they be isolated from the biosphere for thousands of years.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987 established the federal<br/>Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator for a 5-year period. The Nuclear<br/>Waste Negotiator, appointed by the President and confirmed by the<br/>Senate, was empowered to attempt to find a state or Indian tribe willing<br/>to host a repository or a monitored retrievable storage (MB) facility for the<br/>permanent or temporary storage of nuclear waste, respectively.
Consideration of the technical feasibility of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site for a high-level nuclear<br/>waste repository has led to an intense debate regarding the economic, social, and political impacts of the<br/>repository.
Geologic repositories for radioactive waste are evolving<br/>from conceptualization to the development of specific<br/>designs. Estimates of long-term hazards must be based<br/>upon quantitative predictions of environmental releases<br/>over time periods of hundreds of thousands of years and<br/>longer.
Email from Steven Kraft to Alex Thrower
Map-U.S. Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations
A method is presented for determining the relative favorability<br/>of geologically complex areas for isolating high-level<br/>radioactive wastes. In applying the method to the northeastern region<br/>of the United States, seismieity and tectonic activity were the<br/>screening criteria used to divide the region into three areas of<br/>increasing seismotectonic risk. The following criteria, specified by<br/>the U.S.
This report describes the first phase in evaluating the<br/>geology and hydrology of the Basin and Range Province for<br/>potential suitability of geohydrologic environments for isolation<br/>of high-level radioactive waste.
Programs to manage and ultimately dispose of high-level radioactive wastes are unique from scientific and technological as well as socio-political aspects. From a scientific and technological perspective, high-level radioactive wastes remain potentially hazardous for geological time periods—many millennia—and scientific and technological programs must be put in place that result in a system that provides high confidence that the wastes will be isolated from the accessible environment for these many thousands of years.
This appendix responds to the issues raised by Federal, State, and local governments, affected Indian Tribes, private citizens, and other organizations on the draft environmental assessment (EA) that was prepared pursuant to Section 112 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (the Act). In addition to presenting the issues raised in the comments and the responses, it describes where changes were made in the final EA.
Index of Comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment for the Hanford Site
In February 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) identified a reference repository location at the Hanford Site in Washington as one of the nine potentially acceptable sites for a mined geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The site is in the Columbia Plateau, which is one of five distinct geohydrologic settings considered for the first repository.
In February 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) identified a reference repository location at the Hanford Site in Washington as one of the nine potentially acceptable sites for a mined geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The site is in the Columbia Plateau, which is one of five distinct geohydrologic settings considered for the first repository.
This report has been produced at the request of Congress. The House Appropriations Committee Print that accompanied the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, requests that the U.S. Department of Energy (the Department):<br/>…develop a plan to take custody of spent fuel currently stored at decommissioned reactor sites to both reduce costs that are ultimately borne by the taxpayer and demonstrate that DOE can move forward in the near term with at least some element of nuclear waste policy.
The "Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982" (NWPA) (42 USC Sections 10101-10226) requires the environmental assessment to include a detailed statement of the basis for nominating a site as suitable for characterization. This detailed statement is to be an evaluation of site suitability under the DOE siting guidelines; the evaluation will be the basis for the comparison of sites reported in Chapter 7.
In February 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) identified a<br/>location in Deaf Smith County, Texas, as one of nine potentially acceptable<br/>sites for a mined geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level<br/>radioactive waste. The potentially acceptable site was subsequently narrowed<br/>to an area of 9 square miles.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future was formed by the Secretary of<br/>Energy at the direction of the President. The Commission was formed to conduct a<br/>comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including<br/>all alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense used nuclear fuel,<br/>high–level waste, and materials derived from nuclear activities.