This report provides information on the inventory of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in the United States located at Nuclear Power Reactor and Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation sites, as well as SNF and reprocessing waste located at U.S. Department of Energy sites and other research and development centers as of the end of calendar year 2021.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is exploring options for developing a large-scale transportation system for the safe transport of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste to future storage or disposal facilities. This complex, large-scale transportation system will involve coordinated, integrated activities. Interfaces with various transportation and non-transportation activities must be defined, and systems must be developed to ensure successful integration when the system becomes operational.
The question of whether centralized storage of civilian spent nuclear fuel (SNF) should be part of the federal waste management system as an intermediate step before permanent disposal has been debated for more than four decades. Centralized storage facilities were included as a potential component of the U.S. spent fuel management system in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), but the NWPA did not identify these facilities as being essential.
In response to Section 141 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the Department of Energy hereby submits a proposal for the construction of a facility for monitored retrievable storage (MRS). The approval of this proposal by the Congress would specifically--
• Approve the construction of an MRS facility at a site on the Clinch River in the Roane County portion of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
• Limit the storage capacity at the MRS site to 15,000 metric tons of uranium.
