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

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5.103<br />

5.8 IRREVERSIBLE AND IRRETRIEVABLE COMMITMENT OF RESOURCES ASSOCIATED WITH GEOLOGIC<br />

REPOSITORIES<br />

Resources that will be irretrievably committed in disposal <strong>of</strong> radioactive wastes in<br />

geologic repositories are the energy resources consumed in repository construction and<br />

operation, cement (a relatively energy intensive material in concrete) and any canister or<br />

engineered barrier materials committed to the repository with the waste. Ranges <strong>of</strong> commit-<br />

ments <strong>of</strong> these resources for the several geologic disposal media, on a normalized energy<br />

production basis <strong>of</strong> one GWe-yr, are presented below:<br />

Spent Fuel Fuel Reprocessing Approximate U.S.<br />

Repositories <strong>Waste</strong> Repositories Annual Production<br />

Propane, m 3 1.6 - 1.9 1.4 - 3.1 1 x 106<br />

Diesel Fuel, m 3 1.1 x 102 - 1.8 x 102 1.6 x 10 2 - 2.2 x 10 2 4 x 10<br />

Gasoline, m 3 1.2 x 101 - 1.4 x 101 1.1 x 101 - 2.2 x 101 6 x 108<br />

Electricity, kw-hrs 9.9 x 105 - 1.3 x 10 6 1.2 x 106 - 1.8 x 10 6 2 x 1012<br />

Manpower, man-yrs 2.1 x 104 - 2.9 x 10 4 3.2 x 10 4 - 5.3 x 10 4 4 x 10 6 (a)<br />

Steel, MT 1.8 x 101 - 2.8 x 101 6.1 x 101 - 8.1 x 101 1 x 108<br />

Cement, MT 2.1 x 101 - 2.7 x 101 3.1 x 101 - 4.4 x 101 7 x 107<br />

Lumber, m 3 1.8 - 2.1 2.4 - 3.3 3 x 10<br />

(a) Construction and mining.<br />

Even at an installed nuclear power capacity <strong>of</strong> 250 GWe operating over several decades<br />

the above material and energy commitments are but a small fraction <strong>of</strong> that used for the<br />

total economy. To give additional perspective to the consumption <strong>of</strong> energy, fossil fuels,<br />

and electrical consumption, each were converted to units <strong>of</strong> energy expended in deep geologic<br />

disposal <strong>of</strong> waste per unit <strong>of</strong> energy produced by the fuel from which the waste came. In the<br />

case <strong>of</strong> spent fuel 0.04% <strong>of</strong> the energy produced was consumed in geologic waste disposal and<br />

in the case <strong>of</strong> fuel reprocessing wastes 0.05% <strong>of</strong> the energy produced was consumed. On the<br />

above bases it is concluded that the irretrievable commitment <strong>of</strong> the above materials is<br />

warranted.

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