slides - Certification/Licensing Approaches for High Burnup Spent Fuel
slides - Certification/Licensing Approaches for High Burnup Spent Fuel
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Spent fuel transportation and storage cask designs based on a burnup credit approach must
consider issues that are not relevant in casks designed under a fresh-fuel loading assumption. For
example, the spent fuel composition must be adequately characterized and the criticality analysis
model can be complicated by the need to consider axial burnup variations. Parametric analyses are
needed to characterize the importance of fuel assembly and fuel cycle parameters on spent fuel
DOE decided to terminate the Yucca Mountain repository program because, according to DOE officials, it is not a workable option and there are better solutions that can achieve a broader national consensus. DOE did not cite technical or safety issues. DOE also did not identify alternatives, but it did create a Blue Ribbon Commission to evaluate and recommend alternatives.
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…
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
The purpose of this report, and the information contained in the associated computerized data bases, is to establish the DOE/OCRWM reference characteristics of the radioactive waste materials that may be accepted by DOE for emplacement in the mined geologic disposal system as developed under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. This report provides relevant technical data for use by DOE and its supporting contractors and is not intended to be a policy document.
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, established a statutory basis
for managing the nation’s civilian (or commercially produced) spent nuclear
fuel. The law established a process for siting, developing, licensing, and constructing
an underground repository for the permanent disposal of that waste.
Utilities were given the primary responsibility for storing spent fuel until it is
accepted by the Department of Energy (DOE) for disposal at a repository —
originally expected to begin operating in 1998. Since then, however, the repository
This is the Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation Project Director's presentation on Near Term Planning for Stroage and Transportation of Used Nuclear Fuel presented to the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management on January 14, 2013 in Arlington Va.
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
The Used Fuel Disposition (UFD) Transportation Task commenced in October 2010. As its first task, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) compiled a list of structures, systems, and components (SSCs) of transportation systems and their possible degradation mechanisms during extended storage. The list of SSCs and the associated degradation mechanisms [known as features, events, and processes (FEPs)] were based on the list of used nuclear fuel (UNF) storage system SSCs and degradation mechanisms developed by the UFD Storage Task (Hanson et al. 2011).
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (the Act), established a
step-by-step process for the siting of the nation's first repository for
high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel. The Act gave the Department of
Energy (DOE) the primary responsibility for conducting this siting process.
The first step in the process laid out in the Act was the development by
the DOE, with the concurrence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), of
general guidelines to be used by the Secretary of the DOE (the Secretary) in
A brief history of operation, decommissioning, and the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel
Several rod consolidation systems have been demonstrated in the United States with simulated boiling water reactor (BWR) and pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel. The first U.S. consolidation of irradiated fuel was successfully demonstrated with four PWR fuel assemblies at the Oconee Nuclear Station in October-November 1982 (1-3) and with one PWR fuel assembly at Maine Yankee in August 1983(4). Maine Yankee has received approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to consolidate up to 20 fuel assemblies(5).
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Spent Fuel Project Office, Interim Staff Guidance - 8, Revision 2 - Burnup Credit in the Criticality Safety Analyses of PWR Spent Fuel in Transport
and Storage Casks
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Thirty spent fuel samples obtained from boiling-water-reactor (BWR) fuel pins have been
modeled at Oak Ridge National Laboratory using the SAS2H sequence of the SCALE code system.
The SAS2H sequence uses transport methods combined with the depletion and decay capabilities
of the ORIGEN-S code to estimate the isotopic composition of fuel as a function of its burnup
history. Results of these calculations are compared with chemical assay measurements of spent fuel
inventories for each sample. Results show reasonable agreement between measured and predicted
The Analysis of the Total System Life Cycle Cost (TSLCC) of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program represents the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management's most recent estimate of the costs to dispose of the Nations's spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW). This TSLCC analysis projects all Program costs through 2119 for a surrogate, single potential repository. The design and emplacement concepts in this TSLCC analysis are the same as those presented in the Monitored Geologic Repository Project Description Document.
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013