Following the proposals for nuclear fuel assurance of International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed El Baradei, former Russian President Vladimir V.
Putin, and U.S. President George W. Bush, joint committees of the Russian Academy of
Sciences (RAS) and the U.S. National Academies (NAS) were formed to address these and other
fuel assurance concepts and their links to nonproliferation goals. The joint committees also
addressed many technology issues relating to the fuel assurance concepts. This report provides

The Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee was formed to respond to the charge—set forth in the charter of the Blue Ribbon Commission—to evaluate existing fuel cycle technologies and R&D programs in terms of multiple criteria.

To establish a new organization to manage nuclear waste, provide a consensual process for siting nuclear waste facilities, ensure adequate funding for managing nuclear waste, and for other purposes.

This report defines issues that need to be addressed by a development program recently initiated to establish the viability of a transuranic program recently initiated to establish the viability of a transuranic burning concept application that would achieve a substantial delay to the need date for a second geologic repository. The visualized transuranic burning concept application is one in which spent fuel created after a date in the 2010 timeframe or later would be processed and the separated plutonium used to start up liquid metal reactors.

In response to the remand of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Minnesota v. NRC, 602 F.2d 412 (1979)), and as a continuation of previous proceedings conducted in this area by NRC (44 Fed. Reg. 61,372), the Commission initiated a generic rulemaking proceeding on October 25, 1979.

The success of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program of the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) is critical to U.S. ability to manage and dispose of
nuclear waste safely--and to the reestablishment of confidence in the nuclear energy
option in the United States. The program must conform with all applicable standards
and, in fact, set the example for a national policy on the safe disposal of radioactive
waste.
The Secretary of Energy has recently completed an extensive review of the

The main question before the Transportation and Storage Subcommittee was whether the United States
should change its approach to storing and transporting spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level
radioactive waste (HLW) while one or more permanent disposal facilities are established.
To answer this question and to develop specific recommendations and options for consideration by the
full Commission, the Subcommittee held multiple meetings and deliberative sessions, visited several

Dear Mr. President:
At your direction, the Secretary of Energy established the Blue Ribbon Commission on
America’s Nuclear Future to review policies for managing the back end of the nuclear
fuel cycle and recommend a new strategy. We are pleased to be serving as Co‐
Chairmen of the Commission, and we are writing to you to highlight an important action
we strongly believe should be reflected in your Fiscal Year 2013 baseline budget
projections.
In our draft report to the Secretary, issued in July of this year, the Commission

Japan’s spent fuel management and fuel cycle programs are now at a critical stage. Its first commercial-scale reprocessing plant, at Rokkasho Village, will soon start full-scale operation.

The Disposal Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (BRC) addressed a wide-ranging set of issues, all bearing directly on the central question: “How can the United States go about establishing one or more disposal sites for high-level nuclear wastes in a manner and within a timeframe that is technically, socially, economically, and politically acceptable?”

This evaluation investigates the potential benefits of separating the transuranic elements from spent reactor fuel before it is disposed of in geologic repositories. It addresses the question: Would the benefits to radioactive waste disposal justify both processing the spent fuel and deploying liquid metal reactors (LMRs) to transmute the separated transuranics?

http://www.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/ProductAbstract.aspx?ProductId=NP-7…

After more than 20 years of commercial nuclear power, the Federal Government has yet to develop a broadly supported policy for fulfilling its legal responsibility for the final isolation of high-level radioactive waste. OTA's study concludes that until such a policy is adopted in law, there is a substantial risk that the false starts, shifts of policy, and fluctuating support that have plagued the final isolation program in the past will continue.

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

Background To determine whether current and former construction workers are at
significant risk for occupational illnesses from work at the Department of Energy’s (DOE)
nuclear weapons facilities, screening programs were undertaken at the Hanford Nuclear
Reservation, Oak Ridge Reservation, and the Savannah River Site.

An Account of the Programs of Federal Agencies and Events That Have Led to the Selection of a Potential Site for a Geologic Repository for High-Level Radioactive Waste

Construction workers were and are considered temporary workers at many construction sites. Since WWII, large numbers of construction workers were employed at US DOE nuclear weapons sites for periods ranging from a few days to over 30 years. These workers performed tasks during new construction and maintenance, repair, renovation, and demolition of existing facilities.

How to dispose of highly radioactive wastes from commercial nuclear power plants is a question that has remained unresolved in the face rapidly changing technological, economic, and political requirements. In the three decades following WWII, two federal agencies -- the Atomic Energy Commission and the Energy Research and Development Administration -- tried unsuccessfully to develop a satisfactory plan for managing high level wastes.

Since a 1985 decision by President Reagan that a separate permanent repository for disposal of
defense high level waste was not required1, DOE has planned for disposal of all high-level waste
and spent fuel from national defense activities and DOE’s own research activities in a repository
for commercial waste developed under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). The Commission
has heard recommendations from some commenters2 that this decision be revisited, or even

The search for sites for radioactive waste management (RWM) facilities attracts attention from implementers, government bodies, local communities, and the public at large. Facility siting processes, in general, tend to be marred by conflicts, disagreements, and delays.

The effective termination of the Yucca Mountain program by the U.S. Administration in 2009
has further delayed the construction and operation of a permanent disposal facility for used fuel
and high level radioactive waste (HLW) in the United States. In concert with this decision, the
President directed the Energy Secretary to establish the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s
Nuclear Future to review and provide recommendations on options for managing used fuel and

This report evaluates the relative economics of alternative fuel cycles compared to the current
U.S. once-through fuel cycle, including concepts under consideration by the U.S. Department of
Energy’s (DOE) Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). EPRI utilized a model developed
by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), Steady-state analysis Model for Advanced Fuel Cycle
Schemes (SMAFS), to evaluate fuel cycle alternatives. The report also evaluates potential
financing options for a fuel recycling facility. Please note that this report contains preliminary

This report presents the results of a dynamic simulation analysis for deployment of advanced light water reactors (LWRs) and fast burner reactors, as proposed by the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program. Conditions for the analysis were selected for their potential to challenge the nuclear fuel simulation codes that were used, due to the large variations in nuclear fuel composition for the burner reactors before equilibrium conditions are approached. The analysis was performed in a U.S.