U.S. efforts to site and construct a deep geologic repository for used fuel and high level radioactive waste (HLW) proceeded in fits and starts over a three decade period from the late 1950s until 1982, when the U.S. Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). This legislation codified a national approach for developing a deep geologic repository. Amendment of the NWPA in 1987 resulted in a number of dramatic changes in direction for the U.S. program, most notably the selection of Yucca Mountain as the only site of the three remaining candidates for continued investigation.

A joint Oak Ridge - Roane County citizen task force (TF) evaluated the<br/>Department of Energy&#39;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.

On September 12, 2012, the Township of Manitouwadge expressed interest in learning more about the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) site selection process to find an informed and willing community to host a deep geological repository for Canada’s used nuclear fuel (NWMO, 2010). This report summarizes the findings of an initial screening, conducted by Geofirma Engineering Ltd., to evaluate the potential suitability of the Township of Manitouwadge against five screening criteria using readily-available information.

This report aims to clarify the dynamics of socio-technical challenges in the implementation of geological disposal (GD) for High Level Waste (HLW) and Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF). Drawing on the 14 country reports produced within InSOTEC’s WP1 the synthesis focuses on socio-technical challenges that appear across national contexts. The synthesis report elucidates issues made visible through bringing together the analyses of different national contexts.

This report contributes to the InSOTEC research programme’s Work Package 1.1 that maps remaining socio-technical challenges to the implementation of geological disposal of radioactive waste across fourteen countries in the EU and North America (www.insotec.eu). The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the current situation of geological disposal of High Level radioactive Waste (HLW) and Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) in the USA.