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.
On 29 December 2009, the Spanish government launched a site selection process to host a centralised interim storage facility for spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It was an unprecedented call for voluntarism among Spanish municipalities to site a controversial facility. Two nuclear municipalities, amongst a total of thirteen municipalities from five different regions, presented their candidatures to host the facility in their territories. For two years the government did not make a decision.
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.
A program leading to the establishment in FY I983 of a pilot plant for storing radioactive wastes in bedded salt is described. The program consists of laboratory and field investigations of factors affecting the suitability of a specific site in southeastern New Mexico; of more generally applicable problems associated with geohydrology and rock mechanics; and of considerations bearing on the operational safety of a pilot plant repository. Tasks concerned with the engineering development and design of the facility are also included.
In accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part 72, Private Fuel Storage L.L.C. hereby applies for a specific license to receive, transfer and possess power reactor spent fuel and other radioactive material associated with spent fuel storage in an independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) to be constructed and operated on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation in Tooele County, Utah. The license is requested for the storage of spent fuel discharged from licensed U.S. nuclear power reactors in dry storage systems designed by Holtec, International and Sierra Nuclear Corporation.
A joint Oak Ridge - Roane County citizen task force (TF) evaluated the<br/>Department of Energy's (DOE) proposal to site a Monitored Retrievable Storage<br/>facility in Tennessee in terms of environmental, transportation and socioeconomic<br/>impacts. The case study examines how the TF used mitigation, compensation and<br/>incentives (economic and non-economic) to address the problem of distrust of DOE<br/>and to change the net local impact balance from negative to positive.
Fact Sheet - Big Rock Point
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.
This paper summarises CoRWM’s understanding of:<br><br>The roles and responsibilities of the organisations that are involved in the management of radioactive waste, <br>Decision-making on Government policy, <br>Decision-making on the governance of the NDA, <br>Decision-making on waste conditioning, packaging and storage and <br>Decision-making in the implementation of geological disposal.
The UK Government and the devolved administrations_ (for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, from here on referred to as "The Government") statement of October 2006 made clear there will be strong independent scrutiny of the proposals, plans and programmes to deliver geological disposal of higher activity radioactive waste.
The Department of Energy (DOE) is studying a site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for a permanent underground repository for highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear reactors, but delays have pushed back the facility’s opening date to 2010 at the earliest. In the meantime, spent fuel is accumulating at U.S. nuclear plant sites at the rate of about 2,000 metric tons per year. Major options for managing those growing quantities of nuclear spent fuel include continued storage at reactors, construction of a DOE interim storage site near Yucca Mountain, and licensing of private storage facilities.
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 offers specific recommendations to the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.
