The Materials Characterization Center (MCC) at Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) has the responsibility to select appropriate spent fuel Approved Testing Materials (ATMs) and to characterize, via hot-cell studies, certain detailed properties of the discharged fuel. The purpose of this report isto develop a collective description of the entire spent fuel inventory in terms of various fuel properties relevant to ATMs using information available from the Characteristics Data Base (CDB), which is sponsored by the U.S.

The purpose of this report is to provide an estimate of potential waste inventory and waste form
characteristics for the DOE UNF and HLW and a variety of commercial fuel cycle alternatives in order to
support subsequent system-level evaluations of disposal system performance. This report is envisioned as
a “living document” which will be revised as specific alternative fuel cycles are developed

This validation report supports the issuance of Version 6.0 of the Total System Model (TSM BSC-2007a) that is described in the TSM User’s Manual (UM) (BSC-2007b) and the TSM Preprocessor (TSMPP) UM (BSC 2007c). This report assumes the reader has detailed working knowledge of the TSM functions and Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System (CRWMS) operations.
This validation was performed in accordance with AP-ENG-006, Total System Model (TSM)- Changes to Configuration Items and Base Case.

The Interim Staff Guidance on burnup credit issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Spent Fuel Project Office recommends restricting the use of burnup credit to assemblies that have not used burnable absorbers. This restriction eliminates a large portion of the currently discharged spent fuel assemblies from cask loading, and thus severely limits the practical usefulness of burnup credit.

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 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 evaluates the radiological impacts during postulated accidents associated with the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, using the
RADTRAN 5.5 computer code developed by Sandia National Laboratories. RADTRAN 5.5 can
be applied to estimate the risks associated both with incident-free transportation of radioactive
materials as well as with accidents that may be assumed to occur during transportation. Incidentfree
transportation risks for transport of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain were evaluated in

Burnup credit is an ongoing technical concern for many countries that operate commercial
nuclear power reactors. In a multinational cooperative effort to resolve burnup credit issues, a
Burnup Credit Working Group has been formed under the auspices of the Nuclear Energy Agency
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This working group has
established a set of well-defined calculational benchmarks designed to study significant aspects of
burnup credit computational methods. These benchmarks are intended to provide a means for the

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.