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EPRI Review of Geologic Disposal for Used Fuel and High Level Radioactive Waste Volume I—The U.S. Site Selection Process Prior to the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act

Read more about EPRI Review of Geologic Disposal for Used Fuel and High Level Radioactive Waste Volume I—The U.S. Site Selection Process Prior to the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act

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.

Dedicated-site, interim storage of high-level nuclear waste as part of the management system

Read more about Dedicated-site, interim storage of high-level nuclear waste as part of the management system

Dedicated-site interim storage of high-level reprocessed nuclear waste and of spent fuel rods is proposed as a long-term integral part of the systems approach of the national nuclear waste isolation program. Separation of interim sites for retrievable storage from permanent-disposal repositories should enhance ensurance of the performance of the latter; maintenance of retrievability at separate sites also has many advantages in both safety and possible use of waste as resources.

Consolidated Interim Storage of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel

Read more about Consolidated Interim Storage of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel

Approximately 54,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored at operating nuclear power
plants and several decommissioned power plants throughout the country. Spent fuel
storage at these sites was never intended to be permanent. The current Federal plan is to
place the fuel in a repository for permanent disposal in Nevada at Yucca Mountain.
Recently, appropriations committees in Congress suggested building one or more Federal
sites for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel. Several reasons were identified. The

Categorization of Used Nuclear Fuel Inventory in Support of a Comprehensive National Nuclear Fuel Cycle Strategy

A technical assessment of the current inventory [~70,150 metric tons of heavy metal (MTHM) as of
2011] of U.S.-discharged used nuclear fuel (UNF) has been performed to support decisions regarding fuel
cycle strategies and research, development and demonstration (RD&D) needs. The assessment considered
discharged UNF from commercial nuclear electricity generation and defense and research programs and
determined that the current UNF inventory can be divided into the following three categories:

Key Issues Associated with Interim Storage of Used Nuclear Fuel

The issue of interim storage of used (spent)1 fuel is dependent on a number of key factors, some
of which are not known at this time but are the subject of this study. The first is whether or not
the Yucca Mountain Project continues or is cancelled such that it may be able to receive spent
fuel from existing and decommissioned nuclear power stations. The second is whether the United
States will pursue a policy of reprocessing and recycling nuclear fuel. The reprocessing and

Used Fuel Management System Interface Analyses

Preliminary system-level analyses of the interfaces between at-reactor used fuel management, consolidated storage facilities, and disposal facilities, along with the development of supporting logistics simulation tools, have been initiated to provide the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and other stakeholders with information regarding the various alternatives for managing used nuclear fuel (UNF) generated by the current fleet of light water reactors operating in the United States.

Computational Benchmark of SAS2D Against Spent Fuel Samples from the Takahama-3 Reactor

OECD/NEA Burnup Credit Criticality Benchmarks Phase IIIA: Criticality Calculations of BWR Spent Fuel Assemblies in Storage and Transport

Actinide-Only Burnup Credit for Pressurized Water Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel - II: Validation

The calculation of isotopic concentrations in spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies and the subcritical multiplication factor of SNF packages are two of the essential requirements of the actinide-only burnup credit methodology. To justify the accuracy of the computed values, the code systems used to perform the calculations must be validated. Here, the techniques used for actinide-only burnup credit isotopic and criticality validation are presented and demonstrated.

Actinide-Only Burnup Credit for Pressurized Water Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel - III: Bounding Treatment of Spatial Burnup Distributions

A flat, uniform axial burnup assumption, preferred for its computational simplicity, does not always conservatively estimate the pressurized water reactor spent-fuel-cask multiplication factors. Rather, the reactivity effect of the significantly underburned fuel ends, usually referred to as the "end effect," can be properly treated by explicit modeling of the axial burnup distribution based on limiting axial burnup profiles.

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