This three-volume document narrows to two sites for continued investigations for potential nuclear waste repository sites in the Palo Duro Basin of the Texas Panhandle. Volume 1 narrows a site previously identified in Deaf Smith County, Texas; Volume 2 narrows a site previously identified in Swisher County, Texas; and Volume 3 contains responses to comments received regarding the drafts of Volumes 1 and 2 (BMI/ONWI-531).<br/>These volumes discuss the methodology and logic used as well as the results that narrowed these sites.

Worldwide activities related to the storage of spent (irradiated) nuclear power reactor fuel and highly-radioactive, long-lived wastes are summarized, with a review of the storage programs and plans of 26 nations. The focus of the report is on the application of dry storage techniques to spent fuel, although dry storage of long-lived wastes is also reviewed.

Fifty-four objectives were identified to guide the screening of the Nevada Research and Development Area of the Nevada Test Site for relatively favorable locations for the disposal of nuclear waste in a mined geologic repository. The objectives were organized as a hierarchy composed of 4 upper-level, 12 middle-level, and 38 lower-level objectives. The four upper-level objectives account for broad national goals to contain and isolate nuclear waste in an environmentally sound and economically acceptable manner.

The Lake Superior region (Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Minnesota) contains 41 Precambrian crystalline (medium- to coarse-grained igneous and high-grade mstamorphic) rock complexes comprising 64 individual but related rock bodies with known surface exposures. Each complex has a map area greater than 78 km2. About 54% of the rock complexes have areas of up to 500 km2, 15% fall between 500 km2 and 1000 km2, 19% lie between 1000 km2 and 2500 km2, and 12% are over 2500 km2. Crystalline rocks of the region vary widely in composition, but they are predominantly granitic.

This report summarizes the regional geologic and environmental characterizations that have been completed for the Permian region of study, and describes the procedure used to identify study areas for the next phase of investigation. The factors evaluated in the Permian region fall into three broad areas: health and safety, environmental and socioeconomic, and engineering and economic considerations.

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.

Repository performance assessment is analysis that identifies events and processes that might affect a repository system for isolation of radioactive waste, examines their effects on barriers to waste migration, and estimates the probabilities of their occurrence and their consequences. In 1983 Battelle Memorial Institute&#39;s Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation (ONWI) prepared two plans — one for performance assessment for a waste repository in salt and one for verification and validation of performance assessment technology. At the request of the U.S.