A comparison of high-level waste form characteristics

There are currently about 1055 million curies of high-level waste with a thermal output of about 2950 kilowatts (KW) at four sites in the United States: West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), Savannah River Site (SRS), Hanford Site (HANF), and Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). These quantities are expected to increase to about 1200 million curies and 3570 kw by the end of year 2020. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, this high-level waste must ultimately be disposed of in a geologic repository. Accordingly, canisters of high-level waste immobilized in borosilicate glass or glass-ceramic mixtures are to be produced at the four sites and stored there until a repository becomes available. Data on the estimated production schedules and on the physical, chemical, and radiological characteristics of the canisters of immobilized high-level waste have been collected in OCRWM's Waste Characteristics Data Base, including recent updates an revisions. Comparisons of some of these data for the four sites are presented in this report. 14 refs., 3 tabs