MANAGING SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL WASTES AT THE IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY
The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INL) has a large inventory of diverse types of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). This legacy is in part due to the history of the INL as the National Reactor Testing Station, in part to its mission to recover highly enriched uranium from SNF and in part to it’s mission to test and examine SNF after irradiation. The INL also has a large diversity of SNF storage facility, some dating back 50 years in the site history. The success of the INL SNF program is measured by its ability to: 1) achieve safe existing storage, 2) continue to receive SNF from other locations, both foreign and domestic, 3) repackage SNF from wet storage to interim dry storage, and 4) prepare the SNF for dispositioning in a federal repository. Because of the diversity in the SNF and the facilities at the INL, the INL is addressing almost very condition that may exist in the SNF world. Many of solutions developed by the INL are applicable to other SNF storage sites as they develop their management strategy. The SNF being managed by the INL are in a variety of conditions, from intact assemblies to individual rods or plates to powders, rubble, and metallurgical mounts. Some of the fuel has been in wet storage for over forty years. The fuel is stored bare, or in metal cans and either wet under water or dry in vaults, caissons or casks. Inspections have shown varying degrees of corrosion and degradation of the fuel and the storage cans. Some of the fuel has been recanned under water, and the conditions of the fuel inside the second or third can are unknown. The fuel has been stored in one of 10 different facilities: five wet pools and one casks storage pad, one vault, two generations of caisson facilities, and one modular Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI). The wet pools range from forty years old to the most modern pool in the US Department of Energy (DOE) complex. The near-term objective is moving the fuel in the older wet storage facilities to interim dry storage facilities, thus permitting the shutdown and decommission of the older facilities. Two wet pool facilities, one at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center and the other at Test Area North, were targeted for initial SNF movements since these were some of the oldest at the INL. Because of the difference in the SNF materials different types of drying processes had to be developed. Passive drying, as is done with typical commercial SNF was not an option because on the condition of some of the fuel, the materials to be dried, and the low heat generation of some of the SNF. There were also size limitations in the existing facility. Active dry stations were designed to address the specific needs of the SNF and the facilities.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 911647
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-06-11165; TRN: US0800060
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Safety-Related Issues of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage,Almaty, Kazakhstan,09/26/2005,09/29/2005
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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