This briefing paper is a component of the comprehensive briefing package developed for the Negotiator, and describes previous DOE experience in its attempt to site an MRS facility. The Background section highlights, in chronological order, significant events in DOE's MRS siting history from enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to the issuance of the "Report to Congress on Reassessment of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program" in November 1989.

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).

With the Department of Energy’s (DOE) recent submittal of a license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the development of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a national nuclear waste repository moves one step closer to reality. An operating site at Yucca Mountain could receive between 38-106 rail shipments and 53-89 truck shipments annually over a period of 50 years.

The Total System Model (TSM) is a planning tool that estimates the logistic and cost impacts of
various operational assumptions in accepting radioactive wastes. Waste forms currently tracked
are Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel (CSNF), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) spent nuclear
fuel (DOE SNF), and defense high-level (radioactive) waste (HLW). The TSM uses a TSM
Preprocessor (TSMPP) to generate the cask loads and target dates for shipments from waste
sites. The TSM then tracks these wastes from pickup at the waste sites until repository

Construction workers were and are considered temporary workers at many construction sites. Since WWII, large numbers of construction workers were employed at US DOE nuclear weapons sites for periods ranging from a few days to over 30 years. These workers performed tasks during new construction and maintenance, repair, renovation, and demolition of existing facilities.

The 7th Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC) National Workshop and Community Visit was held on 7-9 April 2009 in Bar-le-Duc, France.

Taking credit for the reduced reactivity of spent nuclear fuel in criticality analyses is referred to
as burnup credit. Criticality safety evaluations employing burnup credit require validation of the
depletion and criticality calculation methods and computer codes with available measurement
data. To address the issues of burnup credit criticality validation, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission initiated a project with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to (1) develop and establish

The purpose of this validation is to compare TSM simulation results using the manually calculated work orders (WO) for the transportation cask fleet to simulation results using an automated WO algorithm developed to estimate the cask fleet.