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

8.3
Cask: A container that provides shielding and containment during transportation of radioactive
materials.
Catastrophic: A violent, sudden or unexpected event which results in failure of the predicted
performance of a system or component.
Cation: An ion that is positively charged.
Cation Exchange Chromatography (CEC): A process for separating several cations using the
differences in the rate they travel on an ion exchange column.
Cermet: A material made by combining a heat resistant ceramic with a metal usually made by
powder metallurgy.
CH-TRU: Contact-handled TRU waste.
Clastic: Pertaining to or the state of being a rock or sediment composed principally of
broken fragments derived from preexisting rocks or minerals.
Colocated: Refers to location of facilities at a common site.
Concentration Guide: The average concentration of a radionuclide in air or water to which a
a worker or member of the general public may be continuously exposed without exceeding
radiation dose standards.
Consolidated (material): In geology, natural materials that have been made firm, cohesive,
and hard.
Contact-Handled Waste: Waste package having surface dose rate less than 0.2 R/hr. Such
packages can be handled by workers without extensive shielding. Contact-handled wastes
were termed low-level wastes in DOE/ET-0028 and DOE/ET-0029.
Containment: Confining the radioactive wastes within presented boundaries, e.g., within a
waste package.
Contingency (cost): The amount of money added to the estimated cost of a project to cover
certain areas of cost uncertainty and reduce the probability of understating the project
cost estimate. With the contingency added, there is a more nearly equal probability of a
cost underrun or overrun.
Cost of Money: Weighted cost of debt and equity financing. Cost of money is used synonymously
with cost of capital.
Critical Mass: The mass of fissionable material of a particular shape that is just sufficient
to sustain a nuclear chain reaction.
Criticality: The condition in which a nuclear reactor is just self-sustaining.
Crystalline Rock: An inexact but convenient term designating an igneous or metamorphic
rock, as opposed to a sedimentary rock.
Curie (Ci): A special unit of activity where 1 Ci equals 3.7 x 1010 spontaneous nuclear
disintegrations per second.
Daughter Nuclide: A nuclide formed upon disintegration of a parent radionuclide.
Decommissioning: Preparations taken for retirement from active service of nuclear facilities,
accompanied by the execution of a program to reduce or stabilize radioactive contamination.
The objective of decommissioning is to place the facility in such a condition
that future risk to public safety from the facility is within acceptable bounds.
Decontamination: The selective removal of radioactive material from a surface or from
within another material.