National long-term high-level waste-technology program

The national program for long-term management of high-level waste (HLW) from nuclear fuels reprocessing is discussed. This covers only DOE defense wastes. Current emphasis is on solidification of waste into a form that, along with additional barriers, may be permanently stored in a repository. An integrated national plan incorporates all the elements of such an overall HLW disposal system. Interim storage is in near-surface tanks at the Hanford and Savannah River sites. At the Idaho site, waste is stored in bins after being calcined. Some Idaho waste is liquid and is also stored in tanks before calcination. Retrieval and immobilization of HLW into a solid, low-release form represent the major elements for which our long-term program has responsibility. Once solidified, the waste will temporarily remain onsite until the final disposal site is prepared for receipt of waste. Transportation, if necessary, to the ultimate disposal site is the responsibility of the Transportation Technology Center at Sandia National Laboratory. Disposal in a location remote from the human environment is the responsibility of the Office of NWTS Integration (ONI) and Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation (ONWI) operated by Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio. Currently, a geologic repository is favored for ultimate disposal, although other possibilities such as seabed, icecap, space, and near-surface disposal are also being considered. The HLW technology portion of the program (which involves immobilizing the HLW) includes (1) development of technology to support a realistic choice of an isolation system for each HLW site, (2) development of the candidate forms and processes with sufficient scale-up to provide design data for full-scale facilities, and (3) construction and operation of these facilities