The primary task of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) is to provide independent scrutiny of the Government’s and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s proposal, plans and programmes to deliver geological disposal, together with robust interim storage, as the long-term<br/>management option for the UK’s higher activity wastes. In June 2007 the Scottish Executive announced a policy of near-surface, near-site long-term storage rather than geological disposal.

In mid-1997, a Wyoming-led group of companies announced plans to develop a private interim spent fuel storage project in Wyoming to be known as the Owl Creek Energy Project. The idea for the Wyoming project had been developed under the earlier 1990s Nuclear Waste Negotiator Program. During that earlier activity, the project would have been a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project Office (YMPO) assigned Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the Technical and Management Support Services (T&MSS) contractor to the YMPO, the task of conducting an Early Site Suitability Evaluation (ESSE) of the Yucca Mountain site as a potential site for a high-level radioactive waste repository.

Fact Sheet - Big Rock Point

The U.S. Department of Energy is responding to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff&#39;s comments on the topical report, &quot;Evaluation of the Potentially Adverse Condition &#39;Evidence of Extreme Erosion During the Quaternary Period&#39; at Yucca Mountain, Nevada&quot; and providing additional information supporting the conclusions reached in the report.

In this paper, the major elements of the site selection and characterization processes used in the U.S. high level waste program are discussed. While much of the evolution of the site selection and characterization processes have been driven by the unique nature of the U.S. program, these processes, which are well-defined and documented, could be used as an initial basis for developing site screening, selection, and characterization programs in other countries. Thus, this paper focuses more on the process elements than the specific details of the U.S. program.

RD&D Programme 2007 presents SKB’s plans for research, development and demonstration during<br/>the period 2008–2013. The plans for the first three-year period are for natural reasons more detailed<br/>than those for the next one.

This study evaluated the technical suitability of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a potential site for a mined geologic repository for the permanent disposal of radioactive waste. The evaluation was conducted primarily to determine early in the site characterization program if there are any features or conditions at the site that indicate it is unsuitable for repository development. A secondary purpose was to determine the status of<br/>knowledge in the major technical areas that affect the suitability of the site.

Presented to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America&#39;s Nuclear Future Subcommittee on Disposal

In response to your request, and as a follow-up to the ACNW Working Group meeting with you and your staff on June 17, 1992, we offer the following comments on the Early Site Suitability Evaluation (ESSE) for the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository site. Our comments relate both to the ESSE, as prepared by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and to the draft review prepared by your staff.

Current U.S. nuclear waste law and policy is bankrupt. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) set a 1998 deadline for opening a deep geologic repository to receive spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW) from reprocessing. In 1987, Congress amended the Act to designate Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only potential site, and severely restricted the development of any federal facility for consolidated storage of nuclear waste. Nevada’s unrelenting opposition to the Yucca repository eventually succeeded with the election of Barack Obama as President.

This report puts forth a number of options and recommendations for how to engage stakeholders and other members of the public in the storage and management of spent nuclear fuel and high level waste in the United States. The options are generated from a scientific review of existing publications proposing criteria for assessing past efforts to engage publics and stakeholders in decision-making about risky technologies.

For more than half a century, since nuclear science helped us win World War II and ring in the Atomic Age, scientists have known that the Nation would need a secure, permanent facility in which to dispose of radioactive wastes. Twenty years ago, when Congress adopted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA or &quot;the Act&quot;), it recognized the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that the best option for such a facility would be a deep underground repository.

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.

By the end of this century, the United States plans to begin operating the first geologic repository for the permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive Waste. Public Law 97-425, the Nuclear waste Policy Act of 1982 (the Act), specifies the process for selecting a repository site, and constructing, operating, closing, and decommissioning the repository.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, established a statutory basis<br/>for managing the nation’s civilian (or commercially produced) spent nuclear<br/>fuel. The law established a process for siting, developing, licensing, and constructing<br/>an underground repository for the permanent disposal of that waste.<br/>Utilities were given the primary responsibility for storing spent fuel until it is<br/>accepted by the federal government for disposal at a repository, which originally<br/>was expected to begin operating in 1998.

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.

Final 40 CFR 40 Ruling on Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Management and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel , High-Level and Transuranic Radioactive Wastes