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Management of Commercially Generated Radioactive Waste - U.S. ...

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Draft p. N.1<br />

Issue<br />

161<br />

WASTE MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS<br />

One commenter pointed out a perceived inconsistency to the effect that in one location<br />

(Table N.1) the draft Statement does not show movement <strong>of</strong> spent fuel from reactor directly<br />

to reprocessing plant (which would occur for recycle options) but in another location<br />

(p. 2.1.5) the draft Statement says that storage requirements can be met by power plant<br />

storage basins for the recycle options (thus allowing direct shipment to reprocessing).<br />

(208-NRC)<br />

Response<br />

This perceived inconsistency apparently arose because a qualifying statement in the<br />

first location was overlooked. This statement was "...wastes that are assumed to require<br />

Federal custody for storage or isolation..." If spent fuel is going to a reprocessing<br />

plant, DOE did not assume it to require Federal custody. This material has been completely<br />

revised in the final Statement. Final Section 3.2.1.2 discusses the movements <strong>of</strong> spent fuel<br />

in the reprocessing cycle and these movements are illustrated in Figure 3.2.2. Additional<br />

details on spent fuel shipments such as that contained in Appendix N <strong>of</strong> the draft Statement<br />

are presented in Section 4.5.1 in the final Statement.<br />

Issue<br />

One commenter requested that the basis be given for assuming that two Independent<br />

Retrievable <strong>Waste</strong> Storage Facilities would be needed to serve the needs <strong>of</strong> the reprocessing<br />

industry if repositories are not available until the year 2000. Particular interest was<br />

expressed in the economics <strong>of</strong> facility costs versus transportation costs. (208-NRC)<br />

Response<br />

The requirement was based solely on the quantity <strong>of</strong> waste requiring storage and the<br />

assumed capacity <strong>of</strong> a retrievable waste storage facility for reprocessing and MOX plant<br />

wastes. The capacity <strong>of</strong> a single facility was arbitrarily set to meet the storage require-<br />

ments at the year 1995. This was equivalent to the wastes resulting from processing 45,000<br />

metric tons <strong>of</strong> spent fuel. In the scenario employed in the draft Statement the requirement<br />

increased to 77,000 metric tons equivalent by the year 2000. Thus two retrievable waste<br />

storage facilities were required. In the final Statement, five different nuclear growth<br />

scenarios are considered. Storage requirements for these cases with two different repro-<br />

cessing dates and three different repository dates are described in Chapter 7.0 <strong>of</strong> the final<br />

Statement.

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