The Department of Energy should expand its use of underground research laboratories (URLs) for research on geologic disposal of nuclear waste, including establishing facilities in the United States, a federal panel of experts said in a report Tuesday.
That would include establishing one or more underground research laboratories, potentially using existing underground facilities, according to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
The Energy Department has since 2012 participated in research at URLs in Europe and Asia, the board noted in its report. That began after the Obama administration ended the agency’s efforts to secure a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the planned radioactive waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. Afterward, DOE initiated “generic research” on clay and other types of host rocks, along with disposal environments, that were significantly unlike the environment at Yucca Mountain, the new report says.
“DOE participation in URL-related international research greatly benefits the U.S. geologic disposal R&D program by furthering its understanding of generic and site-specific disposal issues relevant to alternative repository host rocks and environments,” says the report, Filling the Gaps: The Critical Role of Underground Research Laboratories in the U.S. Department of Energy Geologic Disposal Research and Development Program . “DOE-funded R&D activities also are benefiting the URL-related research of other countries, especially in the area of complex analytical and numerical model/software development.”
This research would be useful in geological research for the stalled Yucca Mountain project, for potential alternative disposal sites, and for high-level waste storage sites, the board said. Such research should be applied to generic repositories and to site-specific repositories, it added.
Also, this research could be shared with the public, adding transparency to DOE’s development of such disposal facilities, the report says.
The board said its findings were derived from data provided by Energy Department and international specialists at a workshop in April 2019, a fact-finding mission with DOE in February of that year, and various publications.
It submitted four recommendations to Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Congress this month, including: The Energy Department is urged to increase participation in other nations’ underground research laboratories to further its research and development of geologic repositories, with a focus on the technical needs for designing, licensing, building, and operating disposal facilities in various forms of rock; and the department should pursue at least one URL within the United States to further development and demonstration of waste disposal approaches.
Established by Congress in 1987, the independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board provides technical and scientific evaluations of DOE nuclear waste management activities.
The United Kingdom is expected to generate nearly 4.6 million cubic meters of radioactive waste through 2135, most of it from nuclear power production, according to the latest inventory from the government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
The department inventories the nation’s existing and anticipated holdings of radioactive waste and materials every three years. The new accounting covers the existing stockpile as of April 1, 2019, along with anticipated “future arisings.”
“As a pioneer in the development and use of nuclear technology, the UK has accumulated a substantial legacy of radioactive waste and nuclear materials from electricity generation, defence programmes and other industrial, medical and research activities,” the Jan. 10 document says. “Some of this waste is already in storage, but much of it still forms part of existing facilities and will only become waste over the next century or so as plants are shut down, decommissioned and cleaned-up. Radioactive waste continues to be produced where radioactive substances are used.”
The report breaks down the waste into four categories: high-level, intermediate-level, low-level, and very-low level.
High-level waste, in which radioactivity could cause significant heat increases, is generated through reprocessing spent fuel at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbia. It remains in storage there. The volume as of April 1, 2019, was about 2,150 cubic meters. That amount is expected to eventually drop to 1,390 cubic meters due to conditioning, which cuts volume and mass by roughly two-thirds, and as glassified waste is shipped to customers in other nations, the report says.
Intermediate-level waste is comprised of steels, graphite, concrete, and other materials, in forms including facility equipment, fuel cladding, and reactor parts. The U.K. stockpile stood at 102,000 cubic meters last April, with roughly three-fourths stored at Sellafield. Another 145,000 cubic meters is expected to be generated, for a total of 247,000 cubic meters.
Low-level waste has a radioactive content that tops out at 4 Gigabecquerels per metric tons of alpha activity or 12 Gigabecquerels per metric ton of beta/gamma activity. It is largely comprised of soil, steel, and other debris from disassembly and demolition of nuclear plants, along with other contaminated scrap. The nation held 27,400 cubic meters on April 1, 2019, almost entirely divided among the Dounreay, Sellafield, Aldermaston, and Harwell nuclear sites. Another 1.45 million cubic meters is anticipated to be produced going forward, for a total of 1.48 million cubic meters.
Very-low-level waste has a radioactivity level so low it can be safely placed in a disposal facility for municipal, commercial, or industrial wastes, BEIS said. On April 1, 2019, there was 1,040 cubic meters of the waste type in the United Kingdom, with nearly 900 cubic meters split between the Harwell and Hinkley Point A nuclear power plants. Another 2.83 million cubic meters is expected going forward.
The U.K. is continuing a large-scale nuclear decommissioning and cleanup program, covering its Magnox fleet of 10 reactor plants and two research facilities, the retired Dounreay fast-breeder reactor complex in Scotland, and Sellafield.
The United Kingdom since 1959 has operated a disposal facility in Cumbria for its low-level radioactive waste. It is still looking for a location for a planned geologic repository for high-level waste.
The chief financial officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is moving into the corresponding position at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cherish Johnson will start as the regulator’s CFO on Feb. 18, according to a Monday press release. She succeeds Maureen Wylie, who retired after working for 35 years in the federal government. Deputy CFO Ben Ficks is currently also serving as acting chief financial officer.
The position’s broad financial management activities include oversight of agency spending in comparison to budgeting; setting the agency’s financial management policy; and providing yearly NRC audited financial statements to the NRC chairman and head of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Johnson was NOAA’s chief financial officer/chief administrative office from 2014, following an extended stint at NASA. At the space agency, Johnson served in the Space Operations Mission Directorate and as Mission Support Division director, the release says.
From The Wires
From Nuclear Engineering International: Decommissioning of Japan’s Fukushima Daiini nuclear power plant anticipated to last 44 years.
From the Bowling Green, Ohio, Sentinel-Tribune: A building collapsed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Luckey Site, which is being cleaned up under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
From the The Orange County Register: The retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California lost power for 44 minutes on Wednesday.
From the Detroit Free Press: Michigan will allow large-scale expansion of US Ecology hazardous waste processing facility.
