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

7.3
adoption of this strategy was to be subject to "a full environmental review under the Nat-
ional Environmental Policy Act" which this Statement satisfies. The President further
stated, "We should be ready to select the site for the first full-scale repository by about
1985 and have it operational by the mid-1990s." Subsequent to the President's statement
the Department of Energy published (on April 15, 1980) a Statement of Position on a proposed
NRC rulemaking on storage and disposal of nuclear waste (DOE/NE-0007). DOE states in that
document that implementation of the interim waste disposal strategy will result in the
establishment of operating geologic repositories within the time range of 1997 to 2006. An
exact date of operation, depending on a number of variables, will be determined by the out-
come of existing programs. For example, if a site in bedded or domed salt is selected and
licensing schedules recently forecast by the NRC staff are assumed, repository operation as
early at 1997 could be achieved. However if a hard rock such as granite is selected, and
if allowances are made for other uncertainties such as licensing proceeding delays and a
requirement for more rigorous subsurface site characterization prior to site selection,
initial repository operation could be as late as 2006. To cover additional contingencies
such as an accelerated effort to open a repository or, at the other extreme, additional
delays for reasons not yet foreseen, a range of repository startup dates from 1990 to 2010
is used here. The range of impacts is important in this simulation rather than the specific
dates of repository startup.
Implementation of the alternative program would result in extending the time to opera-
tion of the first disposal system. This action implies a further period of research and
development to bring the development status of the selected disposal alternatives to an
approximately equal status with current knowledge regarding geologic disposal. At that
time, a preferred technology would be selected and effort would be concentrated on develop-
ing this preferred technology with a program similar to the currently planned program for
implementing geologic disposal. Thus a substantial time delay is inherent in this
alternative.
In this system simulation, mined geologic repositories are used to represent the dispo-
sal method ultimately selected under the alternative program. This concept is the only one
developed sufficiently to model impacts and costs reasonably well, and any alternative dis-
posal concept that might be selected would only be selected if it did not have significantly
greater impacts or costs. The primary effect of the alternative program implementation is
the required interim storage for spent fuel or reprocessing wastes, the additional transpor-
tation to and from this storage and the impacts and costs for these operations. Benefits
of the delay inherent in this alternative program include the processing and disposal of
older and thus less radioactive and cooler wastes. Implementation of this alternative pro-
gram is simulated by a range of repository startup dates from 2010 to 2030.
For the no-action alternative, indefinite storage of spent fuel in water basin facili-
ties with no ultimate disposal has been assumed. It is also assumed that reprocessing would
not be undertaken. Only the first three nuclear growth cases are considered because, with-
out disposal, growth of nuclear power generation beyond the year 2000 does not appear
credible.