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Summary of the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013 Discussion Draft

The Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013 discussion draft is intended to implement the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future to establish a nuclear waste administration and create a consent-based process for siting nuclear waste facilities. The bill enables the federal government to fulfill its commitment to managing nuclear waste, ending the costly liability the government bears for its failure to dispose of commercial spent fuel.

An Approach for Validating Actinide and Fission Product Burnup Credit Criticality Safety Analyses--Isotopic Composition Predictions

Taking credit for the reduced reactivity of spent nuclear fuel in criticality analyses is referred to
as burnup credit. Criticality safety evaluations employing burnup credit require validation of the
depletion and criticality calculation methods and computer codes with available measurement
data. To address the issues of burnup credit criticality validation, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission initiated a project with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to (1) develop and establish

Status of Rod Consolidation

Several rod consolidation systems have been demonstrated in the United States with simulated boiling water reactor (BWR) and pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel. The first U.S. consolidation of irradiated fuel was successfully demonstrated with four PWR fuel assemblies at the Oconee Nuclear Station in October-November 1982 (1-3) and with one PWR fuel assembly at Maine Yankee in August 1983(4). Maine Yankee has received approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to consolidate up to 20 fuel assemblies(5).

Preliminary Feasibility Assessment for Several Specific MRS Design Alternatives with the Potential for Early Deployment Revision1

This vintage 1990 document presents the results of WESTON'S preliminary assessment of the feasibility of several alternative fuel-transfer and storage concepts that have the potential for early spent-fuel acceptance at an MRS facility. The feasibility study was part of a series of studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) during the late 1980's and early 1990's in an effort to establish an MRS design configuration.

Spent Fuel Project Office, Interim Staff Guidance - 8, Revision 2

Unirradiated reactor fuel has a well-specified nuclide composition that provides a
straightforward and bounding approach to the criticality safety analysis of transport and storage
casks. As the fuel is irradiated in the reactor, the nuclide composition changes and, ignoring
the presence of burnable poisons, this composition change will cause the reactivity of the fuel to
decrease. Allowance in the criticality safety analysis for the decrease in fuel reactivity resulting

Review of Subcritical Source-Driven Noise Analysis Measurements

Subcritical source-driven noise measurements are simultaneous Rossi-a and randomly
pulsed neutron measurements that provide measured quantities that can be related to the
subcritical neutron multiplication factor. In fact, subcritical source-driven noise
measurements should be performed iii lieu of Rossi-a rneasurements because of the
additional information that is obtained from noise measurements such as the spectral ratio
and the coherencc functions. The basic understanding of source-driven noisc analysis

SCALE-4 Analysis of Pressurized Water Reactor Critical Configurations: Volume 2-Sequoyah Unit 2 Cycle 3

The requirements of ANSI/ANS 8.1 specify that calculational methods for away-from-reactor
criticality safety analyses be validated against experimental measurements. If credit for the negative
reactivity of the depleted (or spent) fuel isotopics is desired, it is necessary to benchmark
computational methods against spent fuel critical configurations. This report summarizes a portion
of the ongoing effort to benchmark away-from-reactor criticality analysis methods using critical
configurations from commercial pressurized-water reactors.

EBS Radionuclide Transport Abstraction

The purpose of this report is to develop and analyze the Engineered Barrier System (EBS) Radionuclide Transport Abstraction Model, consistent with Level I and Level II model validation, as identified in Technical Work Plan for: Near-Field Environment: Engineered Barrier System: Radionuclide Transport Abstraction Model Report (BSC 2006 [DIRS 177739]). The EBS Radionuclide Transport Abstraction (or RTA) is the conceptual model used in the Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) to determine the rate of radionuclide releases from the EBS to the unsaturated zone (UZ).

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