Basic Research Needs for Geosciences - Energetics Meetings and ...

APPENDIX 1: TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVES RESOURCE DOCUMENTfracturing. The commitment to salt became a cornerstone of waste disposal policy for the next 20years.In the 1960’s, improved reprocessing techniques reduced the volume and increased the thermaland radiation content of reprocessed wastes. To test the effect of these new characteristics onsalt, 14 spent fuel assemblies and several heaters to raise the temperature of the salt wereemplaced from 1965 to 1967 in the abandoned Carey Salt Mine at Lyons, Kansas. Theexperiment, called Project Salt Vault, was conducted in an atmosphere of goodwill amongfederal, state and local officials. State and local officials were consulted about various aspects ofthe experiment, public tours of the mine were given during the experiment, and the wastes wereremoved at the end of the experiment, as promised. The results of this experiment showed nomeasurable evidence of excessive chemical or structural effects on the salt.AEC announced in 1970 that, pending confirmatory tests, the Lyons site had been selected forthe first full-scale repository. Although the degree to which AEC had consulted with state andlocal officials before this announcement is in dispute, AEC’s decision did not have fullendorsement from these officials. Moreover, state and local political opposition to the Lyons sitewas intense, particularly when technical problems with the site became apparent. The federalgovernment abandoned plans for Lyons two years later because AEC was unable to convincecritics that the many mining boreholes throughout the site could be plugged reliably and becauseno one could account for the disappearance of a large volume of water flushed into a nearbymine.Left without a repository, AEC requested the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to search foradditional repository sites for defense wastes. It also proposed building a series of above-groundstructures, called retrievable surface storage facilities (RSSFs), to store commercial high-levelwastes for a period of decades while geologic repositories were developed. The environmentalimpact statement issued by AEC in support of the RSSF concept drew intense criticism from thepublic and from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due to concerns that the RSSFswould become low budget permanent repository sites. As a result, AEC abandoned the RSSFconcept in 1975.After the mid-1970’s, significant changes occurred in nuclear waste management. EPA issued itsfirst standards—those for the preparation of reactor fuel, for reactor operations, and forreprocessing of spent fuel—and announced its intention to develop standards for the disposal ofnuclear waste. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 abolished the AEC and distributed itsdevelopmental functions to the new Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA), laterchanged to the Department of Energy (DOE), and its regulatory functions to the new NuclearRegulatory Commission (NRC). These events marked the change to a formal process ofregulating the storage and disposal of high-level wastes. Thus, ERDA (later, DOE) would selecta disposal site and design a facility to meet regulations promulgated by NRC in accordance withEPA standards.By the late 1970’s, the problem of waste isolation had captured the attention of the federalgovernment, which began to allocate substantial personnel and funds to its solution. Althoughmany decision makers still contended that managing high-level radioactive wastes was nottechnically difficult, they increasingly recognized the nontechnical aspects of the problem andworked to develop a firmer technical basis from which to make decisions.Appendix 1 • 44Basic Research Needs for Geosciences: Facilitating 21 st Century Energy Systems