Waste management strategies for fusion materials

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:197106

Dworschak, H; Rocco, P ^[1]; Zucchetti, M ^[2]

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1. Joint Research Centre Inspra Safety Technology Inst. (Italy)
2. Politecnico di Torino (Italy)

Alternative strategies of fusion waste management are analyzed in the frame of the NET/ITER and SEAFP activities of the European Fusion Technology Programme. The amount of tritiated waste will be governed by the conflicting requirements of emitting low activity effluents to the environment and of not producing undue increase in the background levels of tritium. The management of stored tritiated materials is described here. The options proposed for the management of activated and tritium contaminated waste are: (a) After detritiation and conditioning, a prolonged interim storage (50-100 years) is envisaged at the reactor site. During or at the end of this period, the materials exposed to low neutron fluences will be declassified to non-active waste. The residual tritium concentration will be further reduced by radioactive decay and outgassing. (b) After (a), radioactive waste will be recycled when appropriate. Recycling by remote handling is assumed to be feasible for contact dose rates up to three orders of magnitude higher than the (theoretical) limit for hands-on operation: 25 x 10{sup {minus}6} Sv/h. (c) When (b) is not possible and/or suitable, the waste will be disposed in permanent or retrievable geological repositories. Near-surface burial, as applied in some countries to particular categories of fission waste, is not considered applicable. A proper materials selection can reduce the long-term contact dose rate and decay heat also in the waste arising from the most exposed reactor zones. This will facilitate the remote handling and disposal procedures at the waste repository.

• OSTI ID: 197106
• Report Number(s): CONF-940664--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
REACTOR DECOMMISSIONING
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR MATERIALS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TRITIUM