The Yucca Mountain repository

Particularly in light of the recent presidential approval of the Yucca Mountain repository, it is clear that effective management of high-level waste will continue to be a key component in any plan to expand the nation s use of nuclear power as a key component of its energy needs. 

Updated coverage of the Yucca Mountain repository to reflect its discontinuance... 

In the short term, especially in the United States, waste-repository capacity is a significant issue. The long-term capacity of the Yucca Mountain repository could be increased significantly by separating plutonium and americium from spent reactor fuel. 

Spent nuclear fuel has fission products, uranium, and transuranic elements. Plans call for permanent disposal in underground repositories. Geological studies are in progress at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. Until a repository is completed, spent fuel must be stored in water pools or in dry storage casks at nuclear plant sites. 

Murphy, W. M. Palauan, R. T. 1994. Geochemical Investigations Related to the Yucca Mountain Environment and Potential Nuclear Waste Repository. Southwest Research Institute, NUREG/CR-6288, San Antonio, TX. 

In 1992, Congress directed EPA to issue a new environmental standard for disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste that would apply only to the candidate geologic repository at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada (NEPA, 1992). Thus, the existing EPA standards in... 

Nuclear waste. The nuclear waste disposal scheme remains to be finalized. The Yucca Mountain project in Nevada has made good advances recently, and when licensed it can provide a destination for the spent fuel accumulating at the plant sites. The development of a closed fuel cycle that involves the extraction and use of the fissile contents from the irradiated fuel would reduce the long-lived radioactivity associated with the waste to be sent to the repository. 

Andrews, R. A. et al. 1995. Total system performance assessment-J 995 An evaluation of the potential Yucca Mountain repository. Las Vegas, NV Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System Management and Operating Contractor. 

One of EPA s responsibilities has been to develop public health and safety standards for the two major U.S. nuclear waste storage and disposal facilities. The Wa.ste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico stores transuranic wastes. They range from slightly contaminated clothing to barrels of waste so radioactive that it can only be handled with remote control equipment. The proposed Yucca Mountain repository is designed to store high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. 

In mid-November 2001, DOE amended the policies under the NWPA of 1982 for evaluating the suitability of Yucca Mormtain as a site for development of a nuclear waste repository. On June 3,2008, DOE submitted a license application to the NRC seeking approval to construct the repository. In 2010, DOE filed a motion to withdraw its application but this motion was denied. DOE began shutting down the Yucca Mountain project in 2009 and funding was terminated in 2011. 

In early November 2001, NRC published licensing criteria for disposal of SNF and HLW in the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. In June 2008, NRC received the license application from DOE. The NRC began winding down activity related to Yucca Mountain in October 2010 and ceased review activity at the end of September 2011. The NRC resumed work on its technical and environmental reviews of the Yucca Mountain application using available funds in response to an August 2013 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The staff completed and published the final volumes of the safety evaluation report in January 2015. 

Sorption in the geosphere may help to mitigate radionuclide transport from the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Probabilistic performance assessment (PA) models typically use a constant sorption coefficient (K ) for each radionuclide and each hydrostratigraphic unit. Approaches have been developed that include aspects of mechanistic sorption models into PA calculations. Simplified surface complexa-tion models are calibrated against laboratory experiments and used to calculate actinide transport parameters. In one approach, parameter distributions are calculated based on site-specific water chemistry from the Yucca Mountain vicinity. Model results are used to provide limits on probability distribution functions as input into PA. Under the groundwater chem-... 

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