Reduction of risks to the public from geologic waste repositories by partitioning and transmutation: Rock types
- Environmental Evaluation Group, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Partitioning light-water-reactor spent fuel (LWR SF) and transmuting the actinides in fast-spectrum liquid-metal reactors (ALMR) has been proposed as a method of reducing the public risks from geologic disposal of nuclear waste. Does partitioning and transmutation reduce the risks to the public from a geologic repository in water-saturated rock as much as it does for a geologic repository in unsaturated rock? For repositories that contain waste from equal energy generation, we compare maximum radiation dose rates to future individuals that would result from dissolution and hydrogeologic transport of critical radionuclides for hypothetical repositories in unsaturated, oxidizing rock and water-saturated, reducing rock. In each case, the peak radiation dose rate to a maximally exposed individual from a repository containing LWR spent fuel is compared to that from high-level wastes from the reprocessing of LWR and ALMR fuel. We found that while peak dose rates from a repository in unsaturated rock containing high-level waste is somewhat lower than that from LWR spent fuel, the peak dose rate from a repository in saturated-reducing rock containing high-level waste is actually higher than its counterpart containing spent fuel.
- OSTI ID:
- 182126
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940501--
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Journal Issue: Suppl.1 Vol. 70; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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