Nuclear Regulatory Commission Activities Related to High-Level Waste Materials Issues
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ACTIVITIES RELATED TO HIGH-LEVEL WASTE MATERIALS ISSUES* F. ROBERT COOK Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Division of Waste Management, High-Level Waste Licensing Management Branch, Washington, D. C., 20555 ABSTRACT This paper describes the materials related activities of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) staff in the area of high-level waste licensing of a geologic repository for nuclear waste. It frames these activities in the context of existing draft regulations for high-level waste disposal. INTRODUCTION The activities of NRC's High-Level Waste Licensing Management Branch in the Division of Waste Management relate to anticipated licensing of deep geologic repositories for waste. These activities fall into four categories which are summarized below: High-Level Waste Management Materials Section Activities (a)
Gaining understanding, building a technical consensus and advising DOE (current)
(b)
Site characterization report evaluation (1982-1983)
(c)
West Valley Project waste form/canister report evaluation (1984)
(d)
License application assessment (1987-1989).
This paper focuses on the Staff's activities related to performance of the waste package and the engineered system materials issues, since this reflects the author's own area of cognizance. The paper addresses the definition of the waste package and other related terms later in discussion of NRC's proposed performance objectives. As indicated by the dates, the activities listed are roughly in chronological order. Most of the staff's current effort is related to Item A building a technical consensus as to how to reliably predict waste package and engineered system performance and otherwise advising the Department of Energy (DOE) of the Staff's technical concerns and needs for information to accomplish licensing.
This paper is derived from a speech presented to the MRS on November 17, 1981, by the author.
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BACKGROUND The paper will discuss these activities in some detail, but first, in order to put the Staff's activities into their proper context, it will review key features of NRC's proposed rule concerning the waste package and the engineered system. The Staff has proposed to establish minimum requirements for each of the major barriers of a repository identified below: Major Barriers (a)
Natural geologic environment
(b)
Engineered system (1) Underground Facility (2) Waste packages.
This reflects the consideration that meeting minimun design goals or performance objectives will substantially enhance the Commission's confidence In addition, it is generally that the final EPA standards will be met. considered by the technical community that a multiple barrier system is necessary to obtain reasonable assurance of long-term waste isolation in view of uncertainties that attach to reliance on performance of a geologic setting This premise also has been endorsed by the Government's Inter-agency alone. Review Group (IRG). The following definitions provide clarification of several key ter
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