Other Countries Provide Lessons for US in Managing Used Nuclear Fuel
Other Countries Provide Lessons for US in Managing Used Nuclear Fuel
News item from NEI summarizing siting process for nuclear waste repositories in Sweden, Finland and France.
News item from NEI summarizing siting process for nuclear waste repositories in Sweden, Finland and France.
With the first 100 days of the Obama Administration behind us, the Institute for 21st Century Energy presents
this nuclear waste policy document that recounts the history of the country’s nuclear waste policy, discusses
the mechanics of the issue, and off ers specifi c recommendations to the Obama Administration and the
U.S. Congress.
Two weeks aft er the 2008 presidential election, the Institute released dozens of energy policy recommendations for
the incoming administration and 111th Congress. Ten recommendations focused on committing to and expanding
News article on the history, status, and future use of the WIPP facility in New Mexico as a disposal site for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.
Approximately 54,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored at operating nuclear power
plants and several decommissioned power plants throughout the country. Spent fuel
storage at these sites was never intended to be permanent. The current Federal plan is to
place the fuel in a repository for permanent disposal in Nevada at Yucca Mountain.
Recently, appropriations committees in Congress suggested building one or more Federal
sites for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel. Several reasons were identified. The
Yucca Mountain—that barren rise in the desert ninety miles from Las Vegas—is the nation‘s only site identified for the potential location of the first ge ological repository for commercially-generated HLNW and SNF. Many assume
that Yucca Mountain has geologic and climatic qualities that make it uniquely
suitable to isolate the thousands of metric tons of the world‘s most lethal, long lived waste currently accumulating at 104 operating nuclear power plants across the United States.
Unfortunately, Yucca Mountain is an exceptionally bad site,
The voluntary siting process for the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility set forth in the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act (NWPAA) of 1987 provides a potential host community a unique opportunity to improve its present situation and to gain greater control over its future.
U.S. efforts to site and construct a deep geologic repository for used fuel and high level radioactive waste (HLW) proceeded in fits and starts over a three decade period from the late 1950s until 1982, when the U.S. Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). This legislation codified a national approach for developing a deep geologic repository. Amendment of the NWPA in 1987 resulted in a number of dramatic changes in direction for the U.S. program, most notably the selection of Yucca Mountain as the only site of the three remaining candidates for continued investigation.
The effective termination of the Yucca Mountain program by the U.S. Administration in 2009 has left the U.S. program for management of used fuel and high level radioactive waste (HLW) in a state of uncertainty.
Nuclear waste disposal in the USA is a difficult policy issue infused with
science, technology, and politics. This issue provides an example of the co-production
of scientific knowledge and politics through public policy. The proponents of a
repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, argue that their decision to go ahead
with the site is based on ‘sound science’, but the science they use to uphold their
decision is influenced by politics. In turn, the politics of site selection has been altered
Beginning with the role of "stakeholders" - those whose interests are, knowingly or unknowingly, affected - in the siting of noxious facilities, this paper seeks to develop principles for acceptable and democratically arrived at polices related to problems associated with advances in and products of science and technology. Although widely regarded as a necessary condition for success, the principles underpinning stakeholder involvement, such as representativeness, are often violated in practice.
U.S. efforts to site and construct a deep geologic repository for used fuel and high level radioactive waste (HLW) proceeded sporadically over a three-decade period from the late 1950s until 1982, when the U.S. Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) codifying a national approach for developing a deep geologic repository. Amendment of the NWPA in 1987 resulted in a number of dramatic changes in direction for the U.S. program, most notably the selection of Yucca Mountain as the only site of the three remaining candidates for continued investigation.
What are the essential elements of technically credible, workable, and publicly acceptable regulations for disposal (in geologic repositories)?
On the historic evidence, but also for the distinctive qualities of the challenge, nuclear waste siting conflicts are assuredly among the most refractory in the large variety of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) facility siting disputes. Since the president brought the Yucca Mountain process to a halt in 2010 (or, more accurately, issued its death certificate), the search for a permanent waste fuel repository is at the starting line again.
The first world wide review of the geological problems in radioactive waste isolation was published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1991. This review was a compilation of reports that had been submitted to a workshop held in conjunction with the 28th International Geological Congress that took place July 9-19,1989 in Washington, D.C.
In 2001, as directed by the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued public health and environmental radiation protection standards for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Several parties sued the Agency on a myriad of aspects of the rule. The Court ruled in EPA’s favor in all aspects of the case but one, and returned the standards to the Agency in 2004. In 2005, EPA proposed amendments to the standards. Following public hearings and a public review period, the final amendments were issued in September 2008.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America_s Nuclear Future (BRC) was formed by the Secretary<br>of Energy at the request of the President to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for<br>managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and recommend a new strate
A general strategy for the exploration of crystalline rock masses in the<br/>eastern United States for the identification of potential sites for high-level<br/>radioactive waste repositories has been generated by consideration of the<br/>Department of Energy (DOE) Siting Guidelines, available information on these<br/>crystalline rocks, and the capabilities and limitations of various exploration<br/>methods.
Final 40 CFR 40 Ruling on Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Management and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel , High-Level and Transuranic Radioactive Wastes
In the Savannah River Site’s (SRS’) Solid Waste Management Program, a key to success is the Public Involvement Program. The Solid Waste Division at SRS manages the site’s transuranic, low-level, mixed, and hazardous wastes.
The purpose of this study is to assist decision makers in evaluating the centralized interim<br>storage option. We explore the economics of centralized interim storage under a wide variety of<br>circumstances. We look at how a commitment to move forward with centralized interim storage<br>today could evolve over time. And, we evaluate the costs of reversing a commitment toward<br>centralized storage if it turns out that such a decision is later considered a mistake.
Repository performance assessment is analysis that identifies events and processes that might affect a repository system for isolation of radioactive waste, examines their effects on barriers to waste migration, and estimates the probabilities of their occurrence and their consequences. In 1983 Battelle Memorial Institute's Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation (ONWI) prepared two plans — one for performance assessment for a waste repository in salt and one for verification and validation of performance assessment technology. At the request of the U.S.
Department of Interior Comments on Environmental Assessments for Nuclear Waste Repositories at the Deaf Smith and Swisher County Sites, Texas