Plutonium Equivalent Inventory for Belowground Radioactive Waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Technical Area 54, Area G Disposal Facility - Fiscal Year 2011
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- WPS: WASTE PROJECTS AND SERVICES
The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) generates radioactive waste as a result of various activities. Many aspects of the management of this waste are conducted at Technical Area 54 (TA-54); Area G plays a key role in these management activities as the Laboratory's only disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste (LLW). Furthermore, Area G serves as a staging area for transuranic (TRU) waste that will be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal. A portion of this TRU waste is retrievably stored in pits, trenches, and shafts. The radioactive waste disposed of or stored at Area G poses potential short- and long-term risks to workers at the disposal facility and to members of the public. These risks are directly proportional to the radionuclide inventories in the waste. The Area G performance assessment and composite analysis (LANL, 2008a) project long-term risks to members of the public; short-term risks to workers and members of the public, such as those posed by accidents, are addressed by the Area G Documented Safety Analysis (LANL, 2011a). The Documented Safety Analysis uses an inventory expressed in terms of plutonium-equivalent curies, referred to as the PE-Ci inventory, to estimate these risks. The Technical Safety Requirements for Technical Area 54, Area G (LANL, 2011b) establishes a belowground radioactive material limit that ensures the cumulative projected inventory authorized for the Area G site is not exceeded. The total belowground radioactive waste inventory limit established for Area G is 110,000 PE-Ci. The PE-Ci inventory is updated annually; this report presents the inventory prepared for 2011. The approach used to estimate the inventory is described in Section 2. The results of the analysis are presented in Section 3.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE/LANL
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1038875
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-12-20679; TRN: US1202118
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ACCIDENTS
ALPHA-BEARING WASTES
INVENTORIES
LANL
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
MANAGEMENT
PERFORMANCE
PLUTONIUM
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
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RADIOISOTOPES
SAFETY
SAFETY ANALYSIS
WASTES
WIPP