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Letter - Approval of Request to Establish and Populate an Ad Hoc Subcommittee on the Co-Mingling of Defense and Commercial Waste

Gentlemen,
In accordance with the charter of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future and as the Secretary's designee, I approve your request to establish an ad hoc subcommittee to review and make a recommendation to the Commission regarding the co-mingling of defense and commercial waste.
This letter also serves to appoint Dr. Allison Macfarlane as the chair of the subcommittee and the membership of the subcommittee as identified in your letter to me dated October 31, 2011.

Stakeholder Confidence in Radioactive Waste Management: An Annotated Glossary of Key Terms

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC) acts as a centre for informed exchange of knowledge and experience regarding stakeholder interaction and public participation in radioactive waste management. It promotes an open discussion among members and stakeholders, across institutional boundaries, and between technical and non-technical actors, in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect. As such, the FSC is, first and foremost, a learning organisation.

Validation Report: Total System Model Version 6.0 Report Generators

This validation report supports the issuance of Version 6.0 of the Total System Model (TSM, BSC 2007a) that is described in the TSM User Manual (UM, BSC 2007b) and the TSM Preprocessor (TSMPP) User Manual (BSC 2007c). This report assumes the reader has detailed, working knowledge of the TSM functions and the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System (CRWMS) operations. This report is based on an earlier document, Validation Report: Total System Model Version 5.0 Report Generators (BSC 2007d) that supported TSM Version 5.0.

Frequency and Quality of Radiation Monitoring of Construction Workers at Two Gaseous Diffusion Plants

Construction workers were and are considered temporary workers at many construction sites. Since WWII, large numbers of construction workers were employed at US DOE nuclear weapons sites for periods ranging from a few days to over 30 years. These workers performed tasks during new construction and maintenance, repair, renovation, and demolition of existing facilities.

MRS Siting Briefing

This briefing paper is a component of the comprehensive briefing package developed for the Negotiator, and describes previous DOE experience in its attempt to site an MRS facility. The Background section highlights, in chronological order, significant events in DOE's MRS siting history from enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to the issuance of the "Report to Congress on Reassessment of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program" in November 1989.

Historical Summary of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Core Debris Transportation Campaign

Transport of the damaged core materials from the Unit 2 reactor of the Three
Mile Island Nuclear Power Station (TMI-2) to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
(INEL) for examination and storage presented many technical and institutional
challenges, including assessing the ability to transport the damaged core;
removing and packaging core debris in ways suitable for transport; developing a
transport package that could both meet Federal regulations and interface with the

Review of Axial Burnup Distribution Considerations for Burnup Credit Calculations

This report attempts to summarize and consolidate the existing knowledge on axial
burnup distribution issues that are important to burnup credit criticality safety calculations.
Recently released Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff guidance permits limited burnup
credit, and thus, has prompted resolution of the axial burnup distribution issue. The reactivity
difference between the neutron multiplication factor (keff) calculated with explicit representation

Centralized InterimStorage Facility Topical Safety Report

The Centralized Interim Storage Facility (CISF) is designed as a temporary, above-ground away-from-reactor spent fuel storage installation for up to 40,000 metric tons of uranium (MTU). The design is non-site-specific but incorporates conservative environmental and design factors (e.g., 360 mph tornado and 0.75 g seismic loading) intended to be capable of bounding subsequent site-specific factors. Spent fuel is received in dual-purpose canister systems and/or casks already approved for transportation and storage by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Public Beliefs, Concerns and Preferences Regarding the Management of Used Nuclear Fuel and High Level Radioactive Waste

US policy for management of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and high level radioactive wastes (HLRW) is at a crossroads, and the success of new policy directions will depend in part on broad public acceptance and support. In this paper I provide an overview of the evidence concerning the beliefs and concerns of members of the American public regarding UNF and HLNW. I also characterize the evidence on American’s policy preferences for management of these materials.

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