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

1.29
For the proposed program, resource requirements for reprocessing are somewhat higher
than for the once-through cycle in the case of steel, cement, electricity, and manpower; are
about the same to somewhat higher for diesel fuel and gasoline; and are substantially higher
for propane. The higher propane requirement results from incineration of combustible waste.
Gasoline and diesel fuel are used primarily in transportation. These fuel requirements are
based on present practice and can be expected to change as fuel use patterns change gener-
ally. The propane requirements for the reprocessing cycle represent about 0.5% of the total
U.S. consumption for the period to year 2050 assuming current consumption rates hold con-
stant. The largest diesel fuel use amounts to about 1% of total U.S. consumption over the
period.(a) Electricity consumption amounts to 0.02 to 0.05% to the total energy generated
by the nuclear power system in this case.
The resource commitments for the program alternatives using the once-through cycle
increase as the size of the nuclear system served increases. With the exception of the pre-
sent inventory case which changes only slightly, requirements for the alternative program
compared to the proposed program tend to range up to 2 to 3 times higher for steel, cement,
gasoline, propane, and manpower and modestly higher for diesel fuel and electricity.
Requirements for the no-action alternative are zero in the present inventory case and are
about the same as the alternative program for steel, cement, gasoline, propane, and manpower
but diesel and electricity consumption are much lower.
Resource commitments for the program alternatives in the reprocessing cycle tend to be
about the same to somewhat higher than for the proposed program requirements.
1.7.3 Systems Costs(b)
Both total cost and levelized ( c ) unit costs (per kWh) were developed. These costs
include all waste treatment, storage, transport and disposal cos-ts-for wastes resulting
from nuclear power generation through the year 2040. The costs also include DOE's research
and development and repository site qualification costs which are assumed to be recovered
through fees charged to the utilities for storage and disposal. The cost ranges consider
four different disposal media.
In terms of total costs, the costs increase with increasing size of the nuclear system
but are disproportionately high for the very low-growth cases. The estimated costs range
from $5 to $12 billion for the present inventory case (Case 1), to $80 to $150 billion for
the system that reaches 500 GWe installed capacity in the year 2040 (Case 5). Of these
totals, the estimated R&D and multiple-site qualification costs range from $2.9 to $3.6
billion at the low end of the proposed program to $9 to $10 billion at the high end of the
(a) While a commitment of 1% of current U.S. consumption may appear small, some commenters
on the draft Statement viewed such a quantity as excessively large in terms of commitment
for a single industrial use. It should be noted that resource needs have been
approximated for this final Statement. It is believed that optimizing, for instance in
terms of shipping distances, could result in reduction of quantities of resource
required.
(b) All costs are cited in terms of 1978 dollars.
(c) Levelized Unit Cost = Annualized Capital and Operating Costs
Annualized Units Produced