[Shaw] Final Report - Task Order No. 11 - Development of Consolidated Storage Facility Design Concepts

This report has been prepared by the industry team of Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure,
Inc. (Shaw) and Longenecker & Associates (L&A) in response to the Department of Energy
(DOE) Statement of Work, “Development of Consolidated Storage Facility Design
Concepts,” indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity Task Order No. 11, as specified by the
DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy.

The overall results of this report are presented in this Summary. For historical and policy
context, the next section (Section 2.0, Introduction) provides an overview of the report
content, relying heavily on key quotes from the recent “Report of the Blue Ribbon
Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (BRC)” (January, 2012). The BRC report was
directed by President Barack Obama and prepared over a 2-year period by a distinguished
12-member commission for the Secretary of Energy. The BRC report has strong bipartisan
support in Congress, particularly regarding its recommendations for “prompt efforts to
develop one or more consolidated storage facilities” and for a consent-based process for
siting both consolidated storage sites and permanent repositories, forging a consensus among
federal and state governments and local communities. The BRC also recommended “early
preparation for the eventual large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste
to consolidated storage and disposal facilities.” The close alignment between the
recommendations in this report and these BRC recommendations, as displayed in Section
2.0, is due largely to the close alignment between the DOE’s Statement of Work for this
project and the BRC report. Section 2.0 also quotes from the recently issued “Strategy for the
Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste” (DOE,
January 2013). That Strategy report addresses several important needs, including the
Administration’s response to the BRC report (with which it largely agrees). Thus, this Task
Order No. 11 report is also well aligned with the DOE’s latest thinking on consolidated
storage matters.