MRS, transportation, integrated systems

In passing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), the United States Congress initiated a systematic process for addressing the national problem of what to do with the growing inventory of high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel. In addition to requiring development of geologic repositories, the NWPA directed the Secretary of Energy to perform a detailed study of the need for, and the feasibility of, monitored retrievable storage (MRS) and to submit to Congress a proposal for construction of one or more MRS facilities. As a third element of the disposal system, the NWPA also directed the development of the transportation capability to ship the nuclear wastes from the points of origin (chiefly reactors at commercial power plants) to the facilities developed under the NWPA. The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) of the Department of Energy (DOE) was created to manage the overall disposal program. Within OCRWM, the Office of Storage and Transportation Systems (OSTS) is responsible for developing the mandated proposal for an MRS facility, establishing the transportation capability to support the disposal operation, and directing the integrated development of system components so that the entire waste system functions in an optimized way. This paper deals only peripherally with the DOE proposal for an MRS facility since an in-depth paper on that program will be delivered at a later session of this meeting. The primary focus of this discussion is the program that OCRWM is developing to ensure the availability of a safe, efficient transportation system for shipping under provisions of the NWPA