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

SPENT AT REACTOR AWAY FROM
FUEL STORAGE SHIPMENT REACTOR SHIPMENT
STORAGE
4.2
TREATMENT
AND TO DISPOSAL
PACKAGING
- SHIPMENT
FIGURE 4.1.1 Predisposal Waste Management System for Spent Fuel
in the Once-Through Fuel Cycle
treatment and packaging facility if a disposal facility is available. If a disposal
facility is not available, the fuel is assumed to be shipped to an away-from-reactor (AFR)
storage facility.(a) When a disposal facility is available, the fuel is shipped there for
treatment and packaging prior to disposal. Alternative approaches include having packaging
facilities located separately from disposal facilities with extended storage of packaged
fuel before disposal.
The types of operations and facilities considered in this Statement for each of the
disposal alternatiPes are identified in Table 4.1.1. This table shows that the initial
storage and shipment operations are identical for all of the disposal alternatives. The
differences in the predisposal systems are in the treatment and packaging and final shipment
to disposal. Four of the eight alternatives to mined geologic disposal can utilize the same
treatment and packaging options as mined geologic disposal; however, three of these require
ocean ship transport to the final disposal site. Four of the alternatives can only be uti-
lized in the once-through cy .it if the -pent fuel is first dissolved as in a reprocessing
cycle. Two of these alternatives require disposal as liquid hý h-level waste. In these two
cases, no shipment to disposal is required because Lre treatment facility and the disposal
facility are located on a common site. The transmutation alternative requires, in addition
(to dissolution of the fuel, complex chemical partitioning, target fabrication, and irradia-
tion. Space disposal requires, in addition to dissolution of the spent fuel, a process to
convert the liquid waste into an encapsulated solid material. All of the alternatives that
utilize a dissolution process would also generate considerable quantities of miscellaneous
TRU waste. These would require the same treatment and handling as the comparable wastes
produced in the reprocessing cycle described in the next subsection.
(a) AFR storage facilities were referred to as independent spent fuel storage facilities
(ISFSFs) in DOE/ET-0028 and DOE/ET-0029.