This summary volume outlines results that are covered in more detail in the final report of the Spent-Fuel Test-Climax project. The project was conducted between 1978 and 1983 in the granite Climax stock at the Nevada Test Site. Results indicate that spent fuel can be safely stored for periods of years in this host medium and that nuclear waste so emplaced can be safely retrieved. We also evaluated the effects of heat and radiation (alone and in combination) on emplacement canisters and the surrounding rock mass.

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.

The 1976 Parliamentary election in Sweden resulted in a coalition government which imposed extremely stringent requirements for the waste produced by Swedish nuclear power plants. The industry responded with a crash study, the Nuclear Fuel Safety (KBS) project, with experts drawn from hundreds of universities and related scientific institutions. A year later, the industry presented “a complete scheme for absolutely safe storage of nuclear waste” in engineered facilities located at about 500 m depth in the Swedish granite bedrock (KBS-I).