Retrievable Surface Storage Facility

Figure 1, Retrievable surface storage facility, water basin concept, cutaway...

Compressive strength is historically one of the best measures of cement quality and will be useful for design purposes for the RSSF (the Retrievable Surface Storage Facility). 

After solidification and packaging, our conceptual studies assume that the waste may be placed in an on-site Retrievable Surface Storage Facility (RSSF). For the design basis assumed for this study, there would probably be a total of 9,000-10,000 containers, 2 ft in diameter by 10 ft in length, with an average heat output of / 250 W/container. The RSSF would probably be close-coupled to the solidification plant. The facility is expected to have the following characteristics ... 

Three main concepts have been considered for disposal of nuclear fuel waste in the very thick ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland-meltdown, anchored emplacement, and surface storage [26]. In the meltdown concept, the heat-generating container of waste would be placed in shallow boreholes in the ice and flowed to melt their way down to the base of the ice sheet over a period of about a decade. In anchored emplacement, the containers would be attached by cables to a surface anchor that would limit their penetration into the ice to a depth of 200 to 500 m. This concept was designed to provide waste retrievability for a period of a few hundred years before additional accumulation of ice covert up the anchors. In surface storage, containers would be placed in a storage facility constructed above the ice surface on piers. As the piers sank, the facility could be jacked up to remain above the ice for perhaps a few hundred years. Then the entire facility would be allowed to slowly sink into the ice sheet. 

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