The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (Board) is tasked by the amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to independently evaluate U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) technical activities for managing and disposing of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. This report was prepared to inform DOE and Congress about the current state of the technical basis for extended dry storage1 of used fuel and its transportation following storage.

To achieve energy security and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction objectives, the United States must develop and deploy clean, affordable, domestic energy sources as quickly as possible. Nuclear power will continue to be a key component of a portfolio of technologies that meets our energy goals. This document provides a roadmap for the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) research, development, and demonstration activities that will ensure nuclear energy remains viable energy option for the United States.

The criticality consequence analysis for pressurized water reactor (PWR) waste packages (WP)
(Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System [CRWMS] Management and Operating
Contractor [M&O] 1997) focused on results obtained by maximizing postulated rates of
reactivity insertion to assure no synergistic reactions could occur among waste packages from
hypothetical criticality events. Other variables potentially influencing the criticality
consequences were held constant during the above referenced analysis. One of those variables

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

Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013

The objective of this analysis is to characterize the criticality safety aspects of a degraded Department of Energy spent nuclear fuel (DOE-SNF) canister containing Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or Oak Ridge Research (ORR) fuel in the Five-Pack Defense High-Level Waste (DHLW) waste package to demonstrate concept viability related to use in the Mined Geologic Disposal System (MGDS) environment for the postclosure time frame.

Japan’s spent fuel management and fuel cycle programs are now at a critical stage. Its first commercial-scale reprocessing plant, at Rokkasho Village, will soon start full-scale operation.

The purpose of this document is to describe the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Project and to establish approved cost and schedule baselines against which overall progress and management effectiveness shall be measured. For the sake of brevity, this Project Plan will be referred to as the Plan throughout this document.

This calculation uses regression (CLReg V1.0 computer code) and non-parametric statistical methods, as specified in References 1 and 12, to develop the critical limit for the 21 Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) waste package (WP) in the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The critical limit is a limiting value of the effective neutron multiplication factor at which a WP configuration is considered potentially critical.

This report provides details of dry storage cask systems and contents in U.S. for commercial light water
reactor fuel. Section 2 contains details on the canisters used to store approximately 86% of assemblies in
dry storage in the U.S. Transport cask details for bare fuels, dual purpose casks and canister transport
casks are included in Section 3. Section 4 details the inventory of those shutdown sites without any
operating reactors. Information includes the cask type deployed, transport license and status as well as