Overview of the prototypical rod consolidation program

In 1985, the U.S. Department of Energy initiated development of spent nuclear fuel rod consolidation equipment for future application at a high-level waste repository facility and/or at a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility. The prototypical consolidation demonstration project (PCDP) is a multiphased project to expedite development and demonstration of equipment to remotely consolidate spent commercial reactor fuel in a dry environment at production rates of 750 tonnes of heavy metal throughput per year. This equipment must be capable of consolidating all light water reactor (LWR) fuel that exceeds 1% of the U.S. inventory of LWR fuel in the year 2000. This equipment is intended to be prototypical of equipment to be used at a geological repository or the MRS facility