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

3.8
In Chapter 6, alternatives to geological disposal in mined continental repositories are
described, evaluated, and compared.
In Chapter 7, the requirements and impacts for entire waste management systems for sev-
eral different nuclear industry growth assumptions are described. These requirement and
impact descriptions incorporate information about the individual waste management components
(described in Chapters 4 and 5) into system simulation calculations.
The assumptions used regarding nuclear fuel cycles and industry growth as well as the
basis for assessing resource commitments, ecological and atmospheric effects, radiological
effects, socioeconomic impacts, potential accidents, physical protection, and costs of
management and disposal of nuclear wastes are described in the following subsections.
3.2.1 Nuclear Fuel Cycle Assumptions
The waste management impacts of two basic light water reactor (LWR) fuel cycles are
analyzed in this Statement. These are 1) the once-through fuel cycle where spent fuel is
sent to disposal without reprocessing for recovery of residual energy potential, and 2) the
reprocessing fuel cycle where spent fuel is determined to be a resource and is processed for
recovery and use of the contained uranium and plutonium. A uranium-only recycle case (with
plutonium remaining in the high-level waste or recovered and stored elsewhere) was consid-
ered in the draft of this Statement. However, because of the low likelihood that this fuel
cycle would ever be implemented and because of comments to this effect received on the draft
Statement, it has been deleted from this final Statement. Information on this fuel cycle
may be found in DOE/ET-0028 and DOE/ET-0029.
3.2.1.1 Once-Through Fuel Cycle
A simplified diagram presenting the once-through cycle is shown in Figure 3.2.1. Spent
fuel is stored until a qualified Federal waste isolation facility is in operation. Storage
can occur either at the reactor site or at an offsite away-from-reactor (AFR) storage facil-
ity, also sometimes referred to as an independent spent fuel storage facility (ISFSF).
Storage at an AFR is necessary if sufficient storage capacity is not available at nuclear
power plant sites. At the AFR, only nontransuranic and gaseous wastes are generated(a)
while the spent fuel is handled and stored. Thus, the only waste of concern to this State-
ment is the spent fuel itself. The following assumptions are made about the once-through
fuel cycle.
* Although storage capacity in the nuclear power plant (reactor) basins will vary
considerably and may be increased significantly for new plants, a given reactor
basin will have, on the average, the capacity for seven annual discharges in addi-
tion to full core reserve. This capacity assumption results in away-from-reactor
(a) Strictly speaking, the radioactivity content in the wastes is "generated" during irradiation
of the fuel in the nuclear power plant.