Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030916527X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) manages dozens of sites across the nation that focus on research, design, and production of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors for defense applications. Radioactive wastes at these sites pose a national challenge, and DOE is considering how to most effectively clean them up. Some of the greatest projected risks, cleanup costs, and technical challenges come from processing and disposing transuranic and high-level radioactive waste. This report addresses how DOE should incorporate risk into decisions about whether the nation should use alternatives to deep geologic disposal for some of these wastes. It recommends using an exemption process involving risk assessment for determining how to dispose of problematic wastes. The report outlines criteria for risk assessment and key elements of a risk-informed approach. The report also describes the types of wastes that are candidates for alternative disposition paths, potential alternatives to deep geologic disposal for disposition of low-hazard waste, and whether these alternatives are compatible with current regulations.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309176336
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
The United States currently has no place to dispose of the high-level radioactive waste resulting from the production of the nuclear weapons and the operation of nuclear electronic power plants. The only option under formal consideration at this time is to place the waste in an underground geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. However, there is strong public debate about whether such a repository could protect humans from the radioactive waste that will be dangerous for many thousands of years. This book shows the extent to which our scientific knowledge can guide the federal government in developing a standard to protect the health of the public from wastes in such a repository at Yucca Mountain. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is required to use the recommendations presented in this book as it develops its standard.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309073170
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
Focused attention by world leaders is needed to address the substantial challenges posed by disposal of spent nuclear fuel from reactors and high-level radioactive waste from processing such fuel. The biggest challenges in achieving safe and secure storage and permanent waste disposal are societal, although technical challenges remain. Disposition of radioactive wastes in a deep geological repository is a sound approach as long as it progresses through a stepwise decision-making process that takes advantage of technical advances, public participation, and international cooperation. Written for concerned citizens as well as policymakers, this book was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and waste management organizations in eight other countries.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309184584
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 42
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Book Description
During the next several years, decisions are expected to be made in several countries on the further development and implementation of the geological disposition option. The Board on Radioactive Waste Management (BRWM) of the U.S. National Academies believes that informed and reasoned discussion of relevant scientific, engineering and social issues can-and should-play a constructive role in the decision process by providing information to decision makers on relevant technical and policy issues. A BRWM-initiated project including a workshop at Irvine, California on November 4-5, 1999, and subsequent National Academies' report to be published in spring, 2000, are intended to provide such information to national policy makers both in the U.S. and abroad. To inform national policies, it is essential that experts from the physical, geological, and engineering sciences, and experts from the policy and social science communities work together. Some national programs have involved social science and policy experts from the beginning, while other programs have only recently recognized the importance of this collaboration. An important goal of the November workshop is to facilitate dialogue between these communities, as well as to encourage the sharing of experiences from many national programs. The workshop steering committee has prepared this discussion for participants at the workshop. It should elicit critical comments and help identify topics requiring in-depth discussion at the workshop. It is not intended as a statement of findings, conclusions, or recommendations. It is rather intended as a vehicle for stimulating dialogue among the workshop participants. Out of that dialogue will emerge the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the National Academies' report.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309183138
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a deep underground mined facility for the disposal of transuranic waste resulting from the nation's defense program. Transuranic waste is defined as waste contaminated with transuranic radionuclides with half-life greater than 20 years and activity greater than 100 nanocuries per gram. The waste mainly consists of contaminated protective clothing, rags, old tools and equipment, pieces of dismantled buildings, chemical residues, and scrap materials. The total activity of the waste expected to be disposed at the WIPP is estimated to be approximately 7 million curies, including 12,900 kilograms of plutonium distributed throughout the waste in very dilute form. The WIPP is located near the community of Carlsbad, in southeastern New Mexico. The geological setting is a 600-meter thick, 250 million-year-old saltbed, the Salado Formation, lying 660 meters below the surface. The National Research Council (NRC) has been providing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) scientific and technical evaluations of the WIPP since 1978. The committee's task is twofold: (1) to identify technical issues that can be addressed to enhance confidence in the safe and long-term performance of the repository and (2) to identify opportunities for improving the National Transuranic (TRU) Program for waste management, especially with regard to the safety of workers and the public. This is the first full NRC report issued following the certification of the facility by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on May 18, 1998. An interim report was issued by the committee in April 2000 and is reproduced in this report. The main findings and recommendations from the interim report have been incorporated into the body of this report. The overarching finding and recommendation of this report is that the activity that would best enhance confidence in the safe and long-term performance of the repository is to monitor critical performance parameters during the long pre-closure phase of repository operations (35 to possibly 100 years). Indeed, in the first 50 to 100 years the rates of important processes such as salt creep, brine inflow (if any), and microbial activity are predicted to be the highest and will be less significant later. The committee recommends that the results of the on-site monitoring program be used to improve the performance assessment for recertification purposes. These results will determine whether the need for a new performance assessment is warranted. For the National TRU Program, the committee finds that the DOE is implementing many of the recommendations of its interim report. It is important that the DOE continue its efforts to improve the packaging, characterization, and transportation of the transuranic waste.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309498619
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued an Interim Report evaluating the general viability of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration's (DOE-NNSA's) conceptual plans for disposing of 34 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep geologic repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It provided a preliminary assessment of the general viability of DOE-NNSA's conceptual plans, focused on some of the barriers to their implementation. This final report addresses the remaining issues and echoes the recommendations from the interim study.
Author: Kenneth A. Rogers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317170148
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
This well-documented study examines one of the increasingly pressing problems for US homeland security: the storage and management of radioactive waste. Despite pressing homeland security and energy security concerns associated with highly radioactive waste, political considerations have prevented policy makers from adopting adequate long-term solutions to the problem. This book explores nuclear waste problems through the broader lens of federal, state and local government and the resultant constraints on policy that emerge within the American political system. Presenting specific case studies to highlight the deficiencies in current policy and planning as well as the possibility of terrorist activity, it is highly suited to courses on security studies and environmental politics.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309089565
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Understanding Risk addresses a central dilemma of risk decisionmaking in a democracy: detailed scientific and technical information is essential for making decisions, but the people who make and live with those decisions are not scientists. The key task of risk characterization is to provide needed and appropriate information to decisionmakers and the public. This important new volume illustrates that making risks understandable to the public involves much more than translating scientific knowledge. The volume also draws conclusions about what society should expect from risk characterization and offers clear guidelines and principles for informing the wide variety of risk decisions that face our increasingly technological society. Frames fundamental questions about what risk characterization means. Reviews traditional definitions and explores new conceptual and practical approaches. Explores how risk characterization should inform decisionmakers and the public. Looks at risk characterization in the context of the entire decisionmaking process. Understanding Risk discusses how risk characterization has fallen short in many recent controversial decisions. Throughout the text, examples and case studiesâ€"such as planning for the long-term ecological health of the Everglades or deciding on the operation of a waste incineratorâ€"bring key concepts to life. Understanding Risk will be important to anyone involved in risk issues: federal, state, and local policymakers and regulators; risk managers; scientists; industrialists; researchers; and concerned individuals.
Author: International Atomic Energy Agency
Publisher: IAEA
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
Over the past decade significant progress has been achieved in the development of waste characterization and control procedures and equipment as a direct response to ever-increasing requirements for quality and reliability of information on waste characteristics. Failure in control procedures at any step can have important, adverse consequences and may result in producing waste packages which are not compliant with the waste acceptance criteria for disposal, thereby adversely impacting the repository. The information and guidance included in this publication corresponds to recent achievements and reflects the optimum approaches, thereby reducing the potential for error and enhancing the quality of the end product. -- Publisher's description.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309456789
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163
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Book Description
The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (DOE) is responsible for the safe cleanup of sites used for nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research. Low-level radioactive waste (LLW) is the most volumetrically significant waste stream generated by the DOE cleanup program. LLW is also generated through commercial activities such as nuclear power plant operations and medical treatments. The laws and regulations related to the disposal of LLW in the United States have evolved over time and across agencies and states, resulting in a complex regulatory structure. DOE asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to organize a workshop to discuss approaches for the management and disposition of LLW. Participants explored the key physical, chemical, and radiological characteristics of low-level waste that govern its safe and secure management and disposal in aggregate and in individual waste streams, and how key characteristics of low level waste are incorporated into standards, orders, and regulations that govern the management and disposal of LLW in the United States and in other major waste-producing countries. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
