ESTIMATED COSTS FOR MANAGEMENT OF HIGH-ACTIVITY POWER REACTOR PROCESSING WASTES

Technical Report · Mon May 13 04:00:00 EDT 1963

OSTI ID:4663821

Blomeke, J O; Perona, J J; Bradshaw, R L; Roberts, J T

A scheme believed to be acceptably safe consists of interim storage as liquids in tanks, followed by pot calcination of the wastes to produce relatively small volumes of stable solids, interim storage of the pots, and shipment of the pots to salt mines for permanent disposal. Total costs are estimated to range from 2.6 x 10/sup -2/ to 4.8 x 10/sup -2/ mills/Kwh(e) and are believed to represent an acceptable contribution to the cost of nuclear power. A 6-ton/ day fuel processing plant is assumed which would handle the fuel from a 15,000-Mw(e) nuclear power economy. This plant would process 1500 ton,/yr of uranium converter fuel at a burnup of 10,000 Mwd/t and 270 ton/yr of thorium converter fuel irradiated to 20,000 Mwd/t. Costs of each operation for the resulting Purex and Thorex wastes in acid and in alkaline form, and for interim storage times from 0 to 30 years, are extracted from a series of earlier studies made of individual management operations. (auth)

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., Tenn.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-26
• NSA Number: NSA-17-026933
• OSTI ID: 4663821
• Report Number(s): ORNL-TM-559
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

DECOMPOSITION
DEPOSITS
ECONOMICS
PUREX PROCESS
SALTS
SOLIDS
STORAGE
THOREX PROCESS
THORIUM
TRANSPORT
URANIUM
VESSELS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE DISPOSAL AND PROCESSING
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTE SOLUTIONS