Potential benefits of waste transmutation to the U.S. high-level waste respository
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN (United States)
This paper reexamines the potential benefits of waste transmutation to the proposed U.S. geologic repository at the Yucca Mountain site based on recent progress in the performance assessment for the Yucca Mountain base case of spent fuel emplacement. It is observed that actinides are assumed to have higher solubility than in previous studies and that Np and other actinides now dominate the projected aqueous releases from a Yucca Mountain repository. Actinides are also indentified as the dominant source of decay heat in the repository, and the effect of decay heat in perturbing the hydrology, geochemistry, and thermal characteristics of Yucca Mountain are reviewed. It is concluded that the potential for thermally-driven, buoyant, gas-phase flow at Yucca Mountain introduces data and modeling requirements that will increase the costs of licensing the site and may cause the site to be unattractive for geologic disposal of wastes. A transmutation-enabled cold repository is proposed that might allow licensing of a repository to be based upon currently observable characteristics of the Yucca Mountain site.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 106866
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-95-1792; CONF-9407103-; ON: DE95014018; TRN: 95:006680-0003
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International conference on accelerator-driven transmutation technologies and applications, Las Vegas, NV (United States), 25 Jul - 1 Aug 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1995]; Related Information: Is Part Of AIP conference on accelerator driven transmutation technologies and applications, Las Vegas, Nevada, July 25-29, 1994; Schriber, S.O.; Arthur, E.; Rodriguez, A.A.; PB: 958 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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