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Long-Term Institutional Management of U.S. Department of Energy Legacy Waste Sites - Summary

This study examines concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in its planning for transition from active waste site management and remediation to what the department terms “long-term stewardship.” It examines the scientific, technical, and organizational capabilities and limitations that must be taken into account in planning for the long-term institutional management of the department’s numerous waste sites that are the legacy to this country’s nuclear weapons program. It also identifies characteristics and design criteria for effective longterm institutional management.

THE ROLE OF INDIAN TRIBES IN AMERICA’S NUCLEAR FUTURE

Indian tribes have voiced their tribal issues in the United States‘ nuclear effort since its
inception, with the siting of what would become Los Alamos National Laboratory adjacent to the
San Ildefonso Pueblo Reservation and the Hanford plutonium production works along waterways
shared with the Yakama Nation and other Indian tribes. The siting of a proposed repository at
Yucca Mountain, Nevada along with other activities conducted on the Nevada National Security
Site (NNSS) (formerly the Nevada Test Site), increased the need for the United States

Disposal and Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel — Finding the Right Balance

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

SCALE-4 Analysis of Pressurized Water Reactor Critical Configurations: Volume 4-Three Mile Island Unit 1 Cycle 5

The requirements of ANSI/ANS-8.1 specify that calculational methods for away-from-reactor
criticality safety analyses be validated against experimental measurements. If credit is to be taken for
the reduced reactivity of burned or spent fuel relative to its original "fresh" composition, it is
necessary to benchmark computational methods used in determining such reactivity worth against
spent fuel reactivity measurements. This report summarizes a portion of the ongoing effort to

Radioactive Waste Repository Licensing, Synopsis of a Symposium, Executive Summary

This book recounts the issues raised and the viewpoints aired at a recent symposium on
repository licensing. It summarizes the problems surrounding the setting of an
Environmental Protection Agency standard for the release of radionuclides and the
regulatory problems inherent in meeting such a standard. Symposium participants came
from a variety of federal agencies and advisory groups, state governments, public interest
groups, engineering firms, national laboratories, and foreign and international
organizations.

One Step at a Time: The Staged Development of Geologic Repositories for High-Level Radioactive Waste - Summary

A new report from the National Academies proposes a management approach called “adaptive staging” as a promising means to develop geologic repositories for high-level waste such as the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Adaptive staging is a learn-as-you-go process that enables project managers to continuously reevaluate and adjust the program in response to new knowledge and stakeholder input.

Waste Acceptance System Requirements Document, Revision 5, ICN 01

The purpose of this document is to establish waste acceptance technical requirements for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System (CRWMS). These requirements and functions consist of two types: (a) internal CRWMS requirements derived from the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System Requirements Document (CRD) (DOE 2007a) as illustrated in Figure 1, and (b) acceptance criteria imposed by the CRWMS on spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW) delivered into the CRWMS.

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