Effects of actinide burning on waste disposal at Yucca Mountain
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Release rates of 15 radionuclides from waste packages expected to result from partitioning and transmutation of Light-Water Reactor (LWR) and Actinide-Burning Liquid-Metal Reactor (ALMR) spent fuel are calculated and compared to release rates from standard LWR spent fuel packages. The release rates are input to a model for radionuclide transport from the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain to the water table. Discharge rates at the water table are calculated and used in a model for transport to the accessible environment, defined to be five kilometers from the repository edge. Concentrations and dose rates at the accessible environment from spent fuel and wastes from reprocessing, with partitioning and transmutation, are calculated. Partitioning and transmutation of LWR and ALMR spent fuel reduces the inventories of uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium in the high-level waste by factors of 40 to 500. However, because release rates of all of the actinides except curium are limited by solubility and are independent of package inventory, they are not reduced correspondingly. Only for curium is the repository release rate much lower for reprocessing wastes.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76OR00033
- OSTI ID:
- 140748
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/OR/00033--T484; ON: DE92016228
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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