Yucca Mountain Project Status
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Yucca Mountain Project Status Thomas E. Kiess and Stephen H. Hanauer Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.
ABSTRACT The Yucca Mountain site was designated in July 2002 as the United States’ location for a geological repository for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive wastes. This site designation was a watershed event in the history of the project, enabling the U.S. Department of Energy to seek a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct and operate a geologic repository. Summarized below are the history and technical basis for this site designation and some key anticipated future events. Many of the significant events to date have been framed by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (and Amendments) and the requirements of the regulatory standard.
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW This paper overviews the current status of the Yucca Mountain (YM) project at a significant time in its history. The historical context described below sets the stage for the events of calendar year 2002, in which the site was recommended and designated as the location of the nation’s intended future geologic repository. These events have been scripted largely from the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) [1], as Amended [2], and from related legislation [3]. The technical basis supporting the site recommendation is briefly summarized by noting some of the attractive features of the site that provide barriers to radionuclide transport. The future of the project involves design, construction, operation, and closure of the YM facility, obtaining the required licenses, and some science and technology opportunities over the project’s lifetime.
BRIEF HISTORICAL CONTEXT The NWPA of 1982 [1] (as amended in 1987 [2], and augmented with the Energy Policy Act of 1992 [3]) provides the statutory framework in which the United States (U.S.) pursues disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The Act calls for the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System to receive commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transport it to a repository site, and dispose of it in a repository to be developed at a location that was as-yet unspecified in 1982. The NWPA also called for characterization of several sites and a study of possible codisposal of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SNF and defense high-level waste (HLW) with commercial SNF. The DOE created the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) as the program to fulfill these functions. The YM site, first identified in the 1970s, was characterized along with other sites in the 1980s, until the 1987 NWPA Amendment [2] limited further site characterization activities to YM only. A 1985 study [4] showed that co-disposal of
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DOE SNF and defense HLW with commercial SNF in one repository was potentially less costly than constructing two separate repositories, as the basis for a co-disposal strategy [5]. OCRWM developed a Viability Assessment in 1998 [6] that assessed the status of technical information about the YM
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