Disposal of nuclear waste

"LOW-LEVEL" RADIOACTIVE WASTE
"Low-Level" Radioactive Waste is one of the most misleading terms ever created. In the U.S., it is all nuclear waste that is not legally high-level waste, some transuranic waste, or mill tailings.
[Fact sheet from NIRS ]

Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal a Congressional Research Service Report, by Mark Holt
Civilian radioactive waste ranges from the highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants to mildly radioactive uranium mill tailings from the processing of uranium ore. Most of the debate over civilian waste disposal focuses on spent fuel and on "low level" waste from nuclear power plants, medical institutions, civilian research facilities, and industry. By volume, low-level waste overwhelmingly predominates, but nearly all the radioactivity in commercial waste is found in spent fuel.

Radiation Exposures From Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Nuclear Waste Transportation to a Geologic Repository or Interim Storage Facility in Nevada by Robert J. Halstead
Individuals who reside, work, or are institutionally confined at certain locations within 6 to 40 meters (20 to 130 feet) of a nuclear waste highway route, or within 6 to 50 meters (20 to 160 feet) of a nuclear waste rail route, could potentially receive yearly radiation doses equal to a significant percentage of, or even in excess of, average annual background doses. Such exposures could occur under circumstances where: (1) residences, workplaces, or certain institutions (especially schools, prisons, or long-term health care or retirement facilities) are located near route features or segments which would require nuclear waste trucks or trains to stop and start again, or travel at very slow speed; (2) the number of shipments is high enough, one to several casks per day, that opportunities for exposures occur frequently at the same locations, and (3) the individuals residing, working, or confined at near-route locations are regularly present to be exposed to a significant portion (if not all) of the shipments which occur annually.

Radioactive Waste Management
The [IAEA]'s 1995 programme on radioactive waste management focused on three major areas: strengthening waste management infrastructures in developing Member States; establishing international principles and standards for the safe management of wastes; and preparing for the convention on waste safety. The increased importance placed by Member States on the decommissioning/dismantling of nuclear installations and the restoration of radioactively contaminated sites was reflected in the introduction of new initiatives in these areas.

Managing Radioactive Waste
Uses of nuclear technology | What is radioactive waste? | How much waste is being produced? | Responsible management of wastes | IAEA's role in radioactive waste management.
[An IAEA Factsheet]

International Profiles of Radioactive Waste and Radioactive Waste Disposal Programs
This collection of profiles has been pieced together from journal articles and books on a variety of topics related to radioactive waste handling and disposal. No new research was performed by the author in creating this document hence errors in the original articles would likely be repeated herein. The attempted format is listed below, however time constraints, ordering of information and lack of information did not usually permit the profiles to take that form. Some of the information is contradictory. This does not always mean that a reporting error has been made as some of the policies are in fact inconsistent.
[Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley].

Safe and Environmentally Sound Management of Radioactive Wastes
Radioactive wastes are generated in the nuclear fuel cycle as well as in nuclear applications (the use of radionuclides in medicine, research and industry). The radiological and safety risk from radioactive wastes varies from very low in short-lived, low-level wastes up to very large for high-level wastes. Annually about 200,000 m3 of low-level and intermediate-level waste and 10,000 m3 of high-level waste (as well as spent nuclear fuel destined for final disposal) is generated world wide from nuclear power production. These volumes are increasing as more nuclear power units are taken into operation, nuclear facilities are decommissioned and the use of radionuclides increases.
[local copy of UN report, 1992]

The Environmental and Ethical Basis of Geological Disposal of Long-Lived Radioactive Wastes
This report presents [a] consensus position in the form of a Collective Opinion of the Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC) of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. It addresses the strategy for the final disposal of long-lived radioactive wastes seen from an environmental and ethical perspective, including considerations of equity and fairness within and between generations. This Collective Opinion, by professionals having responsibilities at a national level in the field of radioactive waste management, is intended to contribute to an informed and constructive debate on this subject. It is based on recent work reported from NEA countries and on extensive discussions held at an NEA workshop organised in Paris in September 1994 on the Environmental and Ethical Aspects of Long-lived Radioactive Waste Disposal.
[local copy of NEA report]

LANDFILLING LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE IS A PROBLEM FOR ALL STATES from RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #69, Mar 21, 1998
The problem of "low level" radioactive waste is not a low level problem. Over the next few decades 500 million Curies of "low level" radioactive material will have to be managed, according to a new book by physicist Marvin Resnikoff. "This is a staggering amount of radioactivity, considering that leakage of even a billionth of a Curie in a lab or hospital is cause for alarm," says Dr. Resnikoff.

Radioactive Waste
Approximately 800 thousand cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste was disposed in 1993, a 45 percent decrease from the preceding year. Industry efforts to minimize waste generation and to reduce the volume of waste by compaction and incineration have contributed to the decrease.
[Brief facts and figures from the US NRC]

Nuclear Material Safety
The Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards is conducting a Business Process Redesign project to establish more efficient and potentially automated processing of material license and amendment requests. Topics covered here include (US) fuel cycle facilities, nuclear material transport, exports and imports of nuclear material and equipment, international nuclear safety, and details of the enforcement program.

Waste Management in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle
All parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining and the preparation of fuel, through to the management of used fuel and decommissioning of a nuclear plant produce some radioactive waste. Nuclear power is the only energy-producing technology which takes full responsibility for all its wastes and fully costs this into the product.
[Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 9, September 1996]

Japanese Waste Shipment From Europe
Since 1969 there have been over 140 shipments of spent nuclear reactor fuel from Japan to Europe. In February 1995 the first of a number of shipments of vitrified high-level waste departed from France for Japan. This waste belongs to four Japanese power utilities who are responsible for its safe storage and eventual disposal. [Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 23, March 1995]

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle (and Australia's role in it)
Like coal, oil and natural gas, uranium is an energy resource which must be processed through a series of steps to produce an efficient fuel for use in the generation of electricity. Each fuel has its own distinctive fuel cycle: however the uranium or 'nuclear fuel cycle' is more complex than the others.
[local copy of <http://www.uic.com.au/nfc.htm>]

The shipment of Japanese radioactive waste
Currently the first shipment of radioactive waste from the reprocessing in France of spent fuel from Japanese nuclear power reactors is being returned to Japan on the 'Pacific Pintail'. It is the first of a number of similar shipments that will take place over the next ten years and as such has caused a number of Caribbean, South American, S E Asian and Pacific countries to express concern and in some cases opposition to the shipment.
[UIC Newsletter # 2, March-April 1995]

Japan: Fifty years later
Early August [1995] marks the fiftieth anniversary of the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a radio broadcast six days later the Japanese Emperor announced to the nation that Japan had surrendered. The debate on whether the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified and if in the long run it saved lives, will no doubt continue. Today, the much less discussed but surprising result is that the only nation ever to suffer the terrible destructive power of the atom has so substantially committed itself to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
UIC Newsletter # 4, July-August 1995

USA Bites the Bullet on Nuclear Waste
The USA has about one quarter of the world's nuclear energy capacity operating or under construction in some way, so what happens with the US nuclear waste program is of more than passing interest to the rest of the world. However, leadership in such matters has long since passed to Europe and Japan, and the USA is one of only very few countries committed to treating spent fuel as waste and hence disposing of whole fuel assemblies without reprocessing them to recover valuable uranium and plutonium for use in reactors.
UIC Newsletter # 5, September-October 1995

Through the Cooking Glass
An opportunity to solve a difficult environmental restoration problem is coming into focus in Oak Ridge. The possible solution appeared when environmental scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory reflected on their legacy of buried radioactive waste from a whole different direction. The novel look at the problem, which uses in situ vitrification or ISV, came after considering the shortcomings of other alternatives.
[ORNL's [proposed] in situ vitrification (ISV)]

Considerations of Autocatalytic Criticality of Fissile Materials in Geologic Repositories
The authors assess the potential risks of uranium or plutonium in waste storage facilities initiating a chain reaction of the type observed in some natural ore bodies. For Yucca Mountain, the paper concludes the scenario is "highly unlikely".

Pollution Prevention at UCLA's Center for Clean Technology
An overview of Pollution Prevention at CCT.
Traditional approaches to waste management have focused on end-of-the-pipe and end-of-the-product life issues. The costs, however, of waste treatment and pollution control are continue to rise. Thus, the redesign of products and processes to prevent waste is becoming ever more attractive than the retrofitting and disposal strategies needed to handle waste. The Center for Clean Technology's pollution prevention program is advancing this strategy of stopping or reducing the generation of wastes.

Radiation Safety of the Biosphere
A project to investigate the clean-up of nuclear waste.

Center for Nuclear and Toxic Waste Management
The Berkeley Center for Nuclear and Toxic Waste Management was established at the University of California at Berkeley [click here for image] in 1993 as a forum to bring together senior faculty from many departments to work together on the technical and sociopolitical aspects of nuclear and toxic waste management. The Center also includes participants from the U.C. national laboratories.

Nuclear Engineering Virtual Library
Nuclear Engineering Bulletin Board and research preprint(s) to appear in "Nuclear Technology".
[from Nuc.Berkeley.Edu]

Nuclear Safety Gopher

[from (US) DOE]

Nuclear Information World Wide Web Server
[at <http://nuke.handheld.com/>]

Index to Nuclear Plants Removed from Service in USA

Nuclear Energy Agency

[France]

Radioctive Waste Management
Reports and documents, including press release(s).
[from the NEA, France]

Institute of Nuclear Engineering at <http://jupiter.int-rpnet.ariadne-t.gr/header.html>

Reed Reactor Facility (Administrative Procedures)
The Reed Reactor is a TRIGA Mark I nuclear reactor which can function as a neutron source for experiments in neutron activation analysis, for the production of radioactive materials, and for experiments in nuclear physics. It is intended that the Reed Reactor Facility serve as an educational and research instrument. The Administrative procedures set forth below will permit The Reed Institute (Reed College) to discharge its responsibilities under its Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) License, and at the same time facilitate the use of the Reactor by qualified individuals and organizations in the Greater Portland Area.
[includes section related to HANDLING, STORAGE, AND DISPOSAL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL]

NRC Home Page

Harmonizing the Economy with the Environment

[from LLNL]

Kym Horsell / khorsell@EE.LaTrobe.EDU.AU & kym@CS.Binghamton.EDU