Interim nuclear waste storage

THERMO-MECHANICAL MODELING OF A SUBSURFACE INTERIM NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE BEHAVIOR IN WORKING CONDITIONS... 

All the components of the nuclear-fission power system are fully operational except for ultimate waste disposal. However, spent fuel is not reprocessed in the United States because there is currently an adequate supply of natural uranium and enrichment services availab 1 e domestically and from other countries at a 1 ower cost than that of the recovered fissionable material from spent fuel. Also, the United States unilaterally declared a moratorium on reprocessing in the early 1980s in an attempt to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons. Current economics do not favor a return to reprocessing and fuel recycling in the United States at this time in as much as it does dramatically increase the amount of interim and final waste storage capacity that is required. 

In 1987, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act. The Act provided that DOE restrict studies for a repository to Yucca Mormtain, Nevada. The Act also authorized DOE construct an interim storage site for SNF, but the facility could not be located in Nevada and funds for its construction cottld not be authorized rmtil Yucca Mormtain was licensed for construction (for fear that the interim site wottld become a permanent repository). The act imwittingly made interim storage a de facto adjrmct to... 

In 2000, interim storage facilities for nuclear waste were numerous. Low-level waste can be solid or liquid. It is stored dry aboveground or relatively shallow underground. At present, there are a total of 250,000 m of buried low-level waste and 106,000 m stored aboveground in the US Department of Energy (DOE) facilities. The cost of dry storage is reported to be 1.2 million per cask. 

NWPA provisions involved protecting public health and safety and the environment, acceptance of waste for disposal, creating a repository of permanent disposal of spent fuel and high level waste, safe transportation of waste to the repository, interim storage of spent fuel for utilities, public participation in the nuclear waste disposal solution and costs recovered from waste generators. Establishing national waste sites for HLRW is not fully resolved. 

GUNTER, H., VALVODA, Z. Use of FUELSTOR Vault for Interim Spent Fuel Storage in Czech Republic. Int. Conf. on Nuclear Waste Management and Environmental Remediation... 

Apparently, US nuclear utilities pay about 750 nullion into the Nuclear Waste Fund every year, plus several 100 million on dry storage casks and their secure storage on-site. For 60 years, as in the NRC scenario, this would be about 45 biUion collected from customers via a surcharge, plus any other interim storage costs. 

Central Interim Storage Facilityfor NuclearFuel—CRAB, Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB), Stockholm, Sweden, 1986. 

The RHP excludes the very short term (to about 3 months after shutdown) and the longterm activities concerned with transport to the repository, disposal and the evolution of wasteforms on geological timescales. The emphasis has therefore been to develop a measure that will reflect the amounts of nuclear materials in storage and the impact of decommissioning/cleanup activities in the medium term (10 to 30 years) during which time wastes will be converted into forms suitable for interim storage. 

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