Storage of radioactive waste

Storage facilities should be adequately located, designed, constructed, operated, secured and maintained to allow for safe custody of the waste packages and for the protection of persons, property and the environment against the radiological hazards associated with radioactive waste. 

The location, design, construction, operation and maintenance of storage facilities should demonstrate the following characteristics  

The development of the radioactive waste store is subject to the requirements established in Ref. [17]. 

The packaging of radioactive waste should be suitable for the type of storage and for the foreseeable time frame of storage. 

Documented procedures should be followed to ensure that short lived radioactive waste is stored so as to allow it to decay to a level of activity at which it can be cleared from regulatory control [18]. 

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Plutonium nitride, 19 691 Plutonium oxalates, 19 691 Plutonium(IV) oxide, 19 669 Plutonium oxides, 19 688-689 Plutonium oxyhalides, 19 689-690 Plutonium pnictides, 19 691 Plutonium-producing reactors, storage of radioactive waste from, 25 855 Plutonium radioisotopes, 21 319 Plutonium refractory compounds, 19 687 Plutonium reprocessing plants, 19 686 Plutonium silicides, 19 690-691 Plutonium solutions, self-radiolysis of, 19 694... 

These reports are based on 120 technical reports (here denoted by KBS TR) on different technical aspects of waste treatment and ground disposal. More than 70 university departments and consulting companies in Sweden and abroad have been engaged in the preparation of these reports. The research on storage of radioactive waste in the ground is still in progress, both within the Nuclear Fuel Safety Project but also within a Swedish-American joint project between Swedish Nuclear Fuel Supply Co(Svensk Karnbranslefdrsorjning AB, SKBF), Fack, S-10240 Stockholm, Sweden, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Earth Science Division, University of California, Berkeley. 

In the past, a number of polluters have used temporary waste storage means, such as aboveground tanks. Storage of radioactive wastes at nuclear power facilities is another example. In-plant storage or nearby polluter-owned sites must meet all current pollution regulations These practices have been costly in retrospect. They have comprised many of the targets of the so-called Superfund. 

The favored method for permanent storage of radioactive waste is deep geologic repositories. This option is the only option for unprocessed spent fuel assemblies and for most HLW. (An alternative, supplemental strategy discussed below is to remove some of the actinides in the HLW by chemical separations prior to geologic storage.)... 

Marine, I.W. (1979) The use of naturally occurring helium to estimate groundwater velocities for studies of geologic storage of radioactive waste. Waste Resourc. Res. 15, 1130-1136. 

ANDRA is the French national agency qualified for long term storage of radioactive waste. 

According to recommendations of the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA), three types of geological formations are suitable for deep imdergroimd storage of Radioactive Waste (RW) and SNF ... 

Subsurface storage of radioactive wastes in geologic formations such as plutons or salt deposits is being considered (16) the concepts presented here are also applicable to this waste management problem. 

Indeed, the French have demonstrated that nuclear power can be economically and politically feasible. France, which uses breeder reactors to provide most of its electricity, has an excellent safety record and is pioneering new methods for the storage of radioactive wastes. 

Tunnels are being dug 400 m (about 1300 feet) beneath Yucca Mountain, Nevada, at a proposed site for storage of radioactive waste. It will be the largest radioactive storage facility in the country, capable of holding up to 63 500 tons of waste. 

One of the problems associated with the storage of radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants is that some of the nuclides remain radioactive for a very long time. An example is plutonium-239, which has a half-life of 2.44 x 10 years. What fraction of plutonium-239 is left after 9.76 x 10 years ... 

This work is supported in part by the Research Programme for the Management and Storage of Radioactive Waste of the Commission of the European Communities. 

The reprocessing and conversion cost of 180/kg includes charges by the government for perpetual storage of radioactive wastes. 

Brandel, V., Dacheux, N., Genet, M., Studies on the chemistry of uranium and thorium phosphates. Thorium phosphate diphosphate A matrix for storage of radioactive wastes. Radiochemistry (Moscow), 43, (2001), D-22. Cited on pages 325, 663. 

Periodic removal and storage of radioactive wastes and spent fuel assemblies... 

Not only must the experimental radioactive materials be stored properly, but all of the waste products which could contain any residual active materials must be kept and stored within the laboratory until they can be disposed of safely, usually by a radiation safety specialist. The temporary storage of radioactive waste gives rise to the possibility of accidental removal of the radioactive waste as ordinary trash. Any trash containers containing radioactive waste should be distinctively marked, and custodial persormel should receive special training to recognize the... 

The study of the potentialities of transmutation of long-lived radionuclides has been included in the fourth five-year shared-cost research and development programme (FWP-4) on "Management and Storage of Radioactive Waste 1990-1994" of the European Commission. Besides, research work on partitioning and transmutation (P T) was carried out at the JRC/ITU in Karlsruhe. 

Five European research institutions have carried out strategy studies on Partitioning and Transmutation to assess its benefits for the safety of the management and storage of radioactive waste. The main conclusions obtained are summarised below. 

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