The Energy Communities Alliance says the U.S. Energy Department’s reinterpretation of the definition for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) could expedite disposal of such material now held at four nuclear cleanup sites.
The ECA said it “can reasonably interpret that the waste streams to which this interpretation may apply” are the canisters of waste that have been vitrified as a glass-like substance at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, as well as sodium-bearing waste and calcine at the Idaho National Laboratory and some tank wastes at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The nongovernmental group, which represents communities near Energy Department nuclear facilities, last week posted “questions and answers” on the updated HLW policy, which the Energy Department rolled out in June. It addresses issues including what material could be affected and where it might ultimately go.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 define high-level waste as highly radioactive material resulting from spent nuclear fuel processing. The same definition stipulates HLW can be material that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission determines needs permanent isolation.
The existing definition, DOE now says, allows it to treat some of this waste as non-HLW, depending on its radiological characteristics rather than its origin. The change removes “artificial and unnecessary standards for disposal decisions” without sacrificing safety, ECA said.
Much of what is currently treated as high-level has a risk profile akin to transuranic or low-level radioactive wastes, according to the Q&A.
Some of the less radioactive HLW could conceivably go to disposal facilities including DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico and the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), as well as a commercial site operated by Waste Control Specialists in Texas.
