Facing the reality of indefinite storage: What does it mean?

The paper encourages not only acknowledging but pro-actively addressing the issues and opportunities resulting from the uncertainty relative to how and when sufficient repository capacity becomes available. It draws on the work of a former IAEA consultancy tasked with addressing very long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) as well as current strategic planning and associated initiatives within the U.S. Department of Energy to address the uncertainty in spent fuel management. The paper advocates addressing this uncertainty by design rather than by default. Approaches are suggested for rethinking the basis of spent nuclear fuel storage equipment, facilities, regulatory framework, and communication strategies to acknowledge and proactively address uncertainty relative to the storage duration and the end state of spent nuclear fuel. (author)