Retrievability Strategy Report

Section 122 of the ''Nuclear Waste Policy Act'' requires that a repository be designed and constructed to permit retrieval of any spent fuel placed in such repository, during an appropriate period of operation of the facility, for one of these reasons: (1) to protect public health and safety, or the environment; and (2) to permit the recovery of the economically valuable contents of such spent fuel. The Act also requires the Secretary to specify an appropriate period of retrievability at the time of the design of a repository. The Secretary has not yet defined any such period. However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in the Code of Federal Regulations Title 10 Part 60.111, requires the design of a geologic repository operations area to allow the retrieval of any or all waste on a reasonable schedule starting at any time up to 50 years after waste operations are initiated. NRC describes a reasonable schedule as one that would permit retrieval in about the same time as it took to construct the repository and emplace the waste. Based on the existing conceptual repository and waste package design and analysis, the Yucca Mountain Project described retrieval operations under normal and abnormal conditions in the 1988 ''Site Characterization Plan (SCP)'' document. In 1991, under the same design assumptions, the Project issued a ''Retrieval Strategy Report for a Potential High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository''. Both the conceptual design of the waste package and the emplacement methods have since changed significantly. This report presents the results of a study to determine whether and to what degree these design and other changes require a revision of the retrieval strategy and, if they do, to recommend a revised strategy. The aim of such a revised strategy was to inform decision makers on how to proceed with design to allow retrievability.