Evolution of the Cavern-Extended Storage (CES) Concept for Flexible Management of HLW
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(YROXWLRQRIWKH&DYHUQ([WHQGHG6WRUDJH &(6 &RQFHSW IRU)OH[LEOH0DQDJHPHQWRI+/: Ian G. McKinley1, Fiona B. Neall2, Paul A. Smith3, Julia M. West4, Hideki Kawamura5 Nagra, 5430 Wettingen, Switzerland 2 Neall Consulting Ltd., 23 Howe Bank Close, Kendal, LA9 7PU, United Kingdom 3 Safety Assessment Management Ltd., 20 Manor Place, EH3 7DS Edinburgh, United Kingdom 4 British Geological Survey, Nicker Hill, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, United Kingdom 5 Obayashi Corporation Tokyo Head Office, Tokyo 108-8502, Japan 1
$%675$&7 The search for greater public acceptance for radioactive waste disposal has meant that repository planning increasingly includes monitoring, institutional control and flexibility with respect to retrieval and reversability. However, the fundamental repository designs are generally unchanged. This paper describes an alternative – the Cavern Extended Storage concept – which aims to incorporate requirements for flexibility and choice for future generations into a deep geological disposal concept that provides a much safer option than extended surface storage. ,1752'8&7,21 In general, nuclear waste repositories are designed as "simple" disposal facilities. A clear aim is to emplace the waste and close the facility in as short a period as possible. Over the last decade or so, the question of public acceptance of repositories has risen in importance leading to much discussion of stepwise implementation, monitoring, institutional control, retrieval, reversibility, etc. These measures generally have little technical justification, but are added with the explicit aim of making the deep geological disposal concept more acceptable – in particular to local populations. The fundamental repository design is usually unchanged, but pilot or test disposal areas may be included and backfilling / sealing delayed for extensive periods to ease any possible future decision to retrieve waste [1], [2]. For high-level waste (HLW), in particular, there are some technical benefits from stepwise implementation associated with maximising programme flexibility. Over the last couple of decades, the cost / benefit of reprocessing has varied considerably due to its direct association with expectations of the future of nuclear power generation in specific countries and the cost of uranium. Until recently, the marked tendency was towards direct disposal of spent fuel (SF), but now the potential of a "nuclear renaissance" is leading to increasing desire to, at least, leave open the option of future reprocessing to recycle spent fuel as MOX. The question thus arises, given the conditions at the beginning of the 21st Century, what is the optimal concept for management of vitrified high-level waste / spent fuel? 7+(&$9(51(;7(1'('6725$*( &(6 5(326,725~500 m in which spent fuel and/or vitrified HLW (or other variants such as SYNROC) are emplaced in appropriately modified large transport / storage casks (e.g. CASTOR – [3].). The handling and storage of waste in this manner is already standard practice in some surface inter
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