DOE CONSIDERING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT FOR DEEP BOREHOLE DISPOSAL

The Department of Energy is considering undertaking a demonstration project for disposal of defense high level waste in deep boreholes, DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Pete Lyons said yesterday. “We are working towards a borehole demonstration project,” Lyons said at a Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board workshop in Washington, D.C. “That was one of the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission. Even in our preliminary studies we can see how in some categories of high level waste the borehole may be a very interesting area to investigate.”

Lyons emphasized that the study on boreholes is in its initial stages and did not provide a time frame or what material may be used in the demonstration. But DOE officials said it would likely be defense waste. “We are certainly not suggesting that it looks very logical for spent fuel. But there’s a whole lot of other wastes that are out there,” he said. DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fuel Cycle Technologies Monica Regalbuto said a study will be released soon on defense waste that could identify material suitable for the borehole project. “We are looking at small packages. One example would be cesium-strontium capsules,” she said, adding later, “We will be publishing a report from Sandia at the end of year, mid December, where we analyze the whole inventory [of defense waste]…We try to group it in terms of different characteristics that make them similar. There is a group of them that are small packages that could potentially go in a borehole.”