The DOE and its predecessor agencies generated liquid radioactive waste as a byproduct of processing SNF for the production of nuclear weapons (DOE, 2009). These wastes were stored in large underground tanks at the

Hanford site, SRS, INL, and the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York State. The DOE Office of Environmental Manage­ment (EM) is now safely storing 333 million L (88 million gallons) of tank waste in 229 underground tanks at three sites:

1. Hanford: 204 million L (54 million gallons) in 177 tanks

2. SRS: 125 million L (33.1 million gallons) in 49 tanks

3. INL: 3.4 million L (0.9 million gallons) in three tanks.

Tank waste is by far the DOE’s most significant environmental, safety, and health challenge, as well as the largest cost element of the cleanup program. Many of these underground tanks, particularly at Hanford, have exceeded their design lives. The DOE expends significant resources and attention to monitoring and maintaining the tanks to ensure they are sound and leak free and that workers can safely perform the necessary tank maintenance and remediation.

The unique and hazardous nature of liquid RAW requires development of innovative technologies for waste retrieval and disposition. These include constructing treatment plants to convert liquid waste into a stable, long — lasting waste form such as glass until it can be safely disposed of in a geo­logical repository. These treatment plants house highly complex chemical and physical treatment processes and must be very robust to operate safely over many years and to protect workers from radiation fields and contami­nation. Thus, they are expensive to construct and operate and require advanced engineering and technologies.

The strategy for dealing with DOE’s tank waste is to:

• minimize the volume of high-activity waste to be solidified through treatment

• store glass canisters onsite until a federal repository is ready for perma­nent disposal

• solidify the low-activity waste (LAW) fraction and dispose onsite

• develop approaches to manage/treat/dispose of some tank wastes as other than HAW

• continue emptying and closing tanks according to compliance agreements.

Waste disposition for commercial medical isotope production

The DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is working to accelerate commercial production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) in the United States without the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU). Mo-99 ’s primary uses include the detection of disease, including heart disease and cancer, and the study of organ structure and function. The isotope’s short half-life and excellent binding properties make it uniquely suited for medical procedures. However, its 66-hour half-life prevents it from being stockpiled during periods of shortage. Mo-99 is a crucial radio­isotope used in approximately 80% of all nuclear medicine diagnostic pro­cedures and in roughly 50,000 diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine procedures performed every day in the United States.

In cooperation with commercial partners and the US national laborato­ries, DOE/NNSA is supporting the US private sector in developing inde­pendent, non-HEU-based technical pathways to produce Mo-99 in the United States by 2014. The NRC or Agreement State would have to license any new commercial production facility. The expected waste streams from the production of Mo-99 are likely to include radioactive waste for which there is currently no commercial disposal path. The projects are under development, and production has not yet commenced at the time this book was written. However, disposition of specific waste and spent nuclear fuels and targets resulting from Mo-99 production could impact the technical and economic viability of each of the projects. Until a disposal path is identified, producers of this medical isotope would need to provide onsite storage.

SNF storage

There are several options for long-term storage of SNF. The three major options for LWR SNF are pool storage at the reactor or a centralized site, dry cask storage at the reactor or a centralized site, and storage/disposal in a repository. All can provide long-term, safe SNF storage. Centralized storage has become the preferred option for many countries (e. g., France, Japan, and Sweden) with significant nuclear power programs.

The current fuel cycle in the United States is an open (or once-through) fuel cycle. Nuclear fuel makes a single pass through a reactor, after which the SNF is removed, stored for a period, and then directly disposed of in a geological repository for permanent isolation. Other fuel cycles (partial recycle or closed fuel cycle) are currently under evaluation but no deploy­ment date has been established. The disposal of SNF and HLW has been a technical and institutional challenge for the United States. However, the United States has successfully sited and operated WIPP — a geological repository for the disposal of defense transuranic (plutonium) wastes — for over a decade.

Dry cask storage is currently the preferred option for long-term storage of SNF because the cask has no moving parts (natural circulation air-cooling for decay heat removal) and requires very little maintenance. As with transport casks, there are economic incentives to storing the fuel in the pool for a decade before transfer to dry cask storage.

The possibility of storage for a century, which is longer than the antici­pated operating lifetimes of nuclear reactors, suggests that the United States should move toward centralized SNF storage sites, starting with SNF from decommissioned reactor sites and in support of a long-term SNF management strategy. Ideally, such storage sites would be at repository sites or at sites capable of future expansion to include reprocessing and other back-end facilities should the United States choose a closed fuel cycle. While this proposal is made in the context of a better long-term fuel cycle system, it also addresses two near-term issues: SNF at decommissioned sites and federal liability for SNF storage.

The federal liability for SNF storage is a result of changing federal poli­cies and delays in the repository program. At the time when most US NPPs were built, it was assumed that LWR SNF would be reprocessed. The plants were built with limited SNF storage capacity because of the expectation that SNF would be shipped within a decade to reprocessing plants for recovery and recycle of plutonium.

US government decisions in the 1970s not to allow commercial reprocess­ing and the resultant national decision to dispose of SNF directly ultimately led to a decision to ship SNF from reactors directly to a geological reposi­tory. Under the NWPA, utilities signed contracts with the federal govern­ment for disposal of SNF with removal of SNF from reactor sites starting in 1998. As reactor SNF storage pools filled and it became evident that the US government would not meet its contractual obligations to receive SNF, utilities began to construct modular dry-cask storage systems for their SNF to enable continued operation of the reactors.

There is a growing national obligation to utilities to address the inability of the government to remove SNF from nuclear plant sites, according to contracts signed with the DOE. The costs are meant to cover the expenses utilities have incurred to build their own dry cask storage facilities at their sites. By 2020, most of the utilities will have built their own ISFSIs for which the government will have to pay as required by court decisions.

The Private Fuel Storage Company (PFS), a utility consortium designed and licensed as an ISFSI in Utah, is a limited liability company (LLC) formed from eight commercial nuclear utilities that attempted to establish an interim waste storage facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah. The project proposed to store 40,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel in dry cask containers above ground on concrete pads.

The NRC issued a license to PFS on February 21, 2006, but conditioned construction authorization on the company first arranging for adequate funding. On February 21, 2007, progress in developing the facility was indefinitely delayed by actions of the US Department of the Interior, which disapproved the lease arrangement between PFS and the Skull Valley Band and denied PFS the use of public lands for an intermodal transfer facility. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated decisions by the US Department of the Interior that blocked construction of PFS in June 2010. The ruling returned the PFS application for a right-of-way and lease of tribal land to the Department of the Interior for further consideration. The Department of the Interior was still considering the request in December 2012, when PFS submitted a letter to the NRC requesting that the license be terminated to avoid future licensing fees.

The Uranium Mill Tailings and Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA), which amended the AEA, directed the EPA to establish standards for active and inactive uranium and thorium mill sites. The standards for active sites, issued in 1983 as 40 CFR Part 192 (and amended in 1995), establish limits on radon emanations from tailings as well as contamination limits for build­ings, soil, and groundwater. A key aspect of UMTRCA is that it required EPA standards to address nonradiological contaminants in a manner con­sistent with EPA requirements for managing chemically hazardous waste.

The AEA does not identify uranium-mining overburden as radioactive material to be controlled, and neither the NRC nor the DOE regulate the disposition of conventional mining wastes as part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Once uranium mining product is processed or is brought into the milling circuit, including production from in-situ recovery operations, the NRC and Agreement States regulate its possession, use, transport, etc.

Uranium recovery

Uranium recovery is the extraction or concentration of uranium from any ore processed primarily for its source material content. Similarly, thorium was also extracted or processed in the past. The uranium recovery processes result in wastes that typically contain relatively low concentrations of radio­active materials having long half-lives. The wastes, in both solid and liquid forms, are classified as 11e(2) byproduct material in accordance with AEA definitions (see Table 18.3).

Three types of uranium recovery facilities have operated, are currently operating, or are planned to operate in the future within the United States: conventional mills, heap leach facilities, and in-situ recovery facilities. Con­ventional mills and heap leach facilities extract uranium from ore processed above ground and, consequently, generate large volumes of solid 11e(2) byproduct material. This material is disposed of in licensed near-surface impoundment(s) on the site of the processing facility or in an offsite waste disposal facility licensed to accept 11e(2) byproduct material. In-situ recov­ery facilities differ from the others in that they leach uranium from ore bodies in the subsurface. Consequently, the predominant waste stream for in-situ recovery facilities consists of liquid wastes generated during their operation (typically less than 200 megaliters per year). The liquid wastes are disposed of by deep disposal well injection, by evapotranspiration to the atmosphere through land application of partially treated liquid waste, or by evaporation to the atmosphere from man-made lined ponds. The volume of solid waste generated at an in-situ recovery facility (including salts from the evaporation process) is relatively small (typically less than 1000 m3 per year) and is ultimately disposed of offsite at a waste disposal facility licensed to accept 11e.(2) byproduct material.

Prior to the mid-1980s, the sole type of uranium recovery facility in the United States was the conventional mill. Many of those previously operat­ing facilities were reclaimed or are in the process of remediating (decommissioning) waste resulting from extracting uranium. Because of near-surface impoundments, those properties (and heap leach facilities) will be subject to long-term care after closure through government ownership. In-situ recovery facilities do not include onsite disposal impoundments and, thus, do not require long-term care after closure.

Enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities waste

The product from uranium recovery facilities is processed to enrich the fissile content. Tailings containing depleted uranium (DU) are a byproduct of the enrichment process. Fuel manufacturing facilities fabricate nuclear fuel assemblies for LWRs containing low-enriched uranium. This activity includes receipt, possession, storage, and transfer of special nuclear mate­rial. Other licensed activities supporting fuel manufacturing include uranium storage, scrap recovery, waste disposal, and laboratory services. Radioactive waste from these processes, which varies in type and amount, is managed within the classes described in Table 18.2.

Depending on available quantities and long-term and short-term needs, DU could be a resource for a variety of applications and uses, in which case it is considered source material. If DU is not a resource, the NRC catego­rizes it as Class A LLW. When 10 CFR Part 61 was developed, the disposal of large quantities of DU was not anticipated. However, with the recent licensing of fuel enrichment facilities, which will produce large quantities of DU waste, NRC determined it appropriate to revisit the issue. Therefore, NRC is examining whether the disposal of large quantities of DU from enrichment plants warrants additional, site-specific disposal protections to ensure long-term safety. As an interim measure, the NRC has issued interim guidance to states that regulate the disposal of large quantities of DU (NRC, 2010).

The DOE and private corporations (e. g., United States Enrichment Cor­poration) currently possess and store DU. The DOE manages a large stock of DU at two gaseous diffusion enrichment plants, and continues to manage it as source material available for reuse. If a decision is made that this mate­rial has no potential use, it can be disposed of in DOE or commercial LLW disposal facilities, provided the waste meets the disposal facility ’s waste acceptance requirements. Some DOE DU has been disposed of as LLW at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), formerly the Nevada Test Site.

18.1.6 Nuclear research and test facilities

SNF from both domestic and foreign research reactors, in addition to limited quantities of commercial SNF, is stored at facilities at the SRS and the INL prior to further disposition. The DOE continues to receive SNF from foreign and domestic research reactors, but plans to complete the program for receipt of foreign research reactor SNF in 2019. No date has been set for completing receipt of SNF from domestic research reactors. The DOE also stores SNF from former defense production reactors. Its current policy and planning includes managing foreign research reactor SNF for 40 years or until ultimate disposition.

In 2009, the Obama Administration announced that it had determined that developing a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is not a workable option and that the United States needs a different solution for nuclear waste disposal. The Secretary of Energy established the BRC on America’s Nuclear Future in January 2010 to evaluate alternative approaches for managing SNF (referred to as ‘used nuclear fuel’ in BRC documents) and HLW from commercial and defense activities.

The BRC conducted a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. It has provided recommendations for ‘developing a safe long-term solution to managing the Nation ’s used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.’ An interim draft report was issued in July 2011, and a final report was submitted to the Secretary of Energy in January 2012 (BRC, 2012).

The report contains eight recommendations for legislative and adminis­trative action to develop a ‘new’ strategy to manage nuclear waste:

1. A new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste manage­ment facilities.

2. A new organization dedicated solely to implementing the waste man­agement program and empowered with the authority and resources to succeed.

3. Access to the funds nuclear utility ratepayers are providing for the purpose of nuclear waste management.

4. Prompt efforts to develop one or more geological disposal facilities.

5. Prompt efforts to develop one or more consolidated storage facilities.

6. Prompt efforts to prepare for the eventual large-scale transport of SNF and HLW to consolidated storage and disposal facilities when such facilities become available.

7. Support for continued US innovation in nuclear energy technology and for workforce development.

8. Active US leadership in international efforts to address safety, waste management, nonproliferation, and security concerns.

The near-term direction advocated by the BRC aligns with ongoing DOE programming and planning. Current programs will identify alternatives and conduct scientific research and technology development to enable long­term storage, transportation, and geological disposal of SNF and all radioac­tive wastes generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles. The BRC report has informed the Administration ’s work with Congress to define a responsible and achievable path forward to manage used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste in the United States.

In January 2013, the Secretary of Energy issued the Administration ’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High — Level Radioactive Waste. The strategy is a ‘framework for moving toward a sustainable program to develop an integrated system capable of transport­ing, storing, and disposing of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from civilian nuclear power generation, defense, national security and other activities’ (DOE, 2013). It addresses several issues: it serves as an Administration policy statement for handling the disposition of nuclear waste; it presents the response to the BRC report; and it represents an initial basis for discussions among the Administration, Congress, and other stake­holders on the path forward for nuclear waste disposal.

The strategy includes a phased, adaptive, and consent-based approach to siting and implementing a comprehensive management and disposal system. With the appropriate authorizations from Congress, the Administration plans to implement a program over the next ten years that:

• sites, designs, licenses, constructs, and begins operations of a pilot interim storage facility by 2021 with an initial focus on accepting used nuclear fuel from shut-down reactor sites;

• advances toward the siting and licensing of a larger interim storage facility to be available by 2025 that will have sufficient capacity to provide flexibility in the waste management system and allow for accept­ance of enough used nuclear fuel to reduce expected government liabilities;

• makes demonstrable progress on the siting and characterization of geo­logic repository sites to facilitate the availability of a geologic repository by 2048.

The Administration, through the DOE, is undertaking activities within existing Congressional authorization to plan for the eventual transporta­tion, storage, and disposal of used nuclear fuel. Activities range from exam­ining waste management system design concepts, to developing plans for consent-based siting processes, to conducting research and development on the suitability of various geologies for a repository.

TRU waste is managed by the DOE. Defense TRU waste is disposed of in the WIPP geological repository and consists of two types. Remote-handled (RH) TRU waste emits more radiation than contact-handled (CH) TRU waste and must be both handled and transported in shielded casks. Section

18.7.7 provides more details on TRU waste and the WIPP facility.

There are currently three active, licensed commercial LLW disposal sites.

A fourth licensed site currently has facilities under construction:

1. EnergySolutions/Chem-Nuclear (Barnwell, South Carolina). As of July 2008, access is limited to LLW generators within three states composing the Atlantic Compact (South Carolina, Connecticut, and New Jersey). Barnwell disposes of Class A, B, and C LLW up to 0.37 TBq (10 Ci) (which precludes many higher activity sealed sources).

2. US Ecology (on the Hanford Site). Restricted access to only the North­west and Rocky Mountain Compacts. The member states of the North­west Compact are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The Rocky Mountain Compact members are Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. US Ecology disposes of Class A, B, and C LLW. The US Ecology site can also accept radium and other naturally occurring radioactive materials and accelerator-produced radioactive waste without compact restrictions.

3. EnergySolutions (Clive, Utah). Accepts Class A LLW and mixed LLW for LLW generators without access to other compact facilities.

4. Waste Control Specialists (WCS) (near Andrews, Texas). Provides Class A, B, and C LLW disposal to generators within the Texas Compact (Texas and Vermont). The site is privately owned and regulated by the

State of Texas. Construction began in January 2011, and operations began in April 2012. The Texas Compact has a process in place to accept (import) a limited volume of waste from out-of-Compact states. In addi­tion, WCS constructed a separate facility for disposal of Federal (limited primarily to DOE) mixed LLW and LLW.

Commercial LLW sites now closed are Beatty, Nevada (closed 1993); Maxey Flats, Kentucky (closed 1977); Sheffield, Illinois (closed 1978); and West Valley, New York (closed 1975).