With the establishment of the “Arbeitskreis Auswahlverfahren Endlagerstandorte” (AkEnd) – the Committee on a Site Selection Procedure for Repository Sites, in the following referred as to as the “committee” - the Federal Minister for the Environment set up a discussion forum on radioactive waste disposal, which has been called for by the public for quite some time.

For more than half a century, since nuclear science helped us win World War II and ring in the Atomic Age, scientists have known that the Nation would need a secure, permanent facility in which to dispose of radioactive wastes. Twenty years ago, when Congress adopted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA or "the Act"), it recognized the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that the best option for such a facility would be a deep underground repository.

Proposals to site, construct and operate a radioactive waste disposal facility in Sweden will be supported by performance assessments (PAs). Such PAs will require a range of expert judgements to be made. As part of SKI’s preparation for reviewing SKB’s Pas and for conducting independent PAs, SKI has identified a need for further research on the treatment of expert judgement in PA.

Reaching negotiated agreement with a state or Indian tribe and preparing of 1he environmental assessment (EA) required by Section 404 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as amended (NWPAA), are the first steps in a process intended to result in the acceptance of radioactive waste at a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility starting in 1998. This paper examines requirements for the EA, the first environmental document to be prepared for siting an MRS facility, and discusses the process used to develop that document.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (the Act), established a step-by-step process for the siting of the nation&#39;s first repository for high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel. The Act gave the Department of<br/>Energy (DOE) the primary responsibility for conducting this siting process.

Geologic repositories for radioactive waste are evolving<br/>from conceptualization to the development of specific<br/>designs. Estimates of long-term hazards must be based<br/>upon quantitative predictions of environmental releases<br/>over time periods of hundreds of thousands of years and<br/>longer.

The thick and regionally extensive sequence of shales and associated clastic sedimentary rocks of Late Devonian and Early Mississippian age has been considered among the “nonsalt geologies” for deep subsurface containment of high-level radioactive wastes.

The importance of social and institutional issues in the siting of nuclear waste facilities has been recognized in recent years. Limited evidence from a survey of rural Wisconsin residents in 1980 indicates that incentives may help achieve the twin goals of increasing local support and decreasing local opposition to hosting nuclear waste facilities.

The disposal of radioactive waste in the proper geologic environment offers a high potential for isolating the waste from man&#39;s environment for the period of time required for the waste to decay to innocuous levels. As part of the National Waste Terminal Storage Program, the Savannah River Laboratory has responsibility for studies related to the storage of waste in the geologic environment in the Southeast.