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Title: Terminating Safeguards on Excess Special Nuclear Material: Defense TRU Waste Clean-up and Nonproliferation - 12426

Abstract

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) manages defense nuclear material that has been determined to be excess to programmatic needs and declared waste. When these wastes contain plutonium, they almost always meet the definition of defense transuranic (TRU) waste and are thus eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The DOE operates the WIPP in a manner that physical protections for attractiveness level D or higher special nuclear material (SNM) are not the normal operating condition. Therefore, there is currently a requirement to terminate safeguards before disposal of these wastes at the WIPP. Presented are the processes used to terminate safeguards, lessons learned during the termination process, and how these approaches might be useful for future defense TRU waste needing safeguards termination prior to shipment and disposal at the WIPP. Also described is a new criticality control container, which will increase the amount of fissile material that can be loaded per container, and how it will save significant taxpayer dollars. Retrieval, compliant packaging and shipment of retrievably stored legacy TRU waste has dominated disposal operations at WIPP since it began operations 12 years ago. But because most of this legacy wastemore » has successfully been emplaced in WIPP, the TRU waste clean-up focus is turning to newly-generated TRU materials. A major component will be transuranic SNM, currently managed in safeguards-protected vaults around the weapons complex. As DOE and NNSA continue to consolidate and shrink the weapons complex footprint, it is expected that significant quantities of transuranic SNM will be declared surplus to the nation's needs. Safeguards termination of SNM varies due to the wide range of attractiveness level of the potential material that may be directly discarded as waste. To enhance the efficiency of shipping waste with high TRU fissile content to WIPP, DOE designed an over-pack container, similar to the pipe component, called the criticality control over-pack, which will significantly enhance the efficiency of disposal. Hundreds of shipments of transuranic SNM, suitably packaged to meet WIPP waste acceptance criteria and with safeguards terminated have been successfully emplaced at WIPP (primarily from the Rocky Flats site clean-up) since WIPP opened. DOE expects that thousands more may eventually result from SNM consolidation efforts throughout the weapons complex. (authors)« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2]
  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Carlsbad Operations Group (United States)
  2. Department Of Energy, Carlsbad Operations Office (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
OSTI Identifier:
22293658
Report Number(s):
INIS-US-14-WM-12426
TRN: US14V1314115182
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: WM2012: Waste Management 2012 conference on improving the future in waste management, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 26 Feb - 1 Mar 2012; Other Information: Country of input: France; 9 refs.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES; 98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION; ALPHA-BEARING WASTES; CONTAINERS; CONTROL; CRITICALITY; EFFICIENCY; FISSILE MATERIALS; PHYSICAL PROTECTION; PLUTONIUM; SAFEGUARDS; SECURITY; WIPP

Citation Formats

Hayes, Timothy, and Nelson, Roger. Terminating Safeguards on Excess Special Nuclear Material: Defense TRU Waste Clean-up and Nonproliferation - 12426. United States: N. p., 2012. Web.
Hayes, Timothy, & Nelson, Roger. Terminating Safeguards on Excess Special Nuclear Material: Defense TRU Waste Clean-up and Nonproliferation - 12426. United States.
Hayes, Timothy, and Nelson, Roger. 2012. "Terminating Safeguards on Excess Special Nuclear Material: Defense TRU Waste Clean-up and Nonproliferation - 12426". United States.
@article{osti_22293658,
title = {Terminating Safeguards on Excess Special Nuclear Material: Defense TRU Waste Clean-up and Nonproliferation - 12426},
author = {Hayes, Timothy and Nelson, Roger},
abstractNote = {The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) manages defense nuclear material that has been determined to be excess to programmatic needs and declared waste. When these wastes contain plutonium, they almost always meet the definition of defense transuranic (TRU) waste and are thus eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The DOE operates the WIPP in a manner that physical protections for attractiveness level D or higher special nuclear material (SNM) are not the normal operating condition. Therefore, there is currently a requirement to terminate safeguards before disposal of these wastes at the WIPP. Presented are the processes used to terminate safeguards, lessons learned during the termination process, and how these approaches might be useful for future defense TRU waste needing safeguards termination prior to shipment and disposal at the WIPP. Also described is a new criticality control container, which will increase the amount of fissile material that can be loaded per container, and how it will save significant taxpayer dollars. Retrieval, compliant packaging and shipment of retrievably stored legacy TRU waste has dominated disposal operations at WIPP since it began operations 12 years ago. But because most of this legacy waste has successfully been emplaced in WIPP, the TRU waste clean-up focus is turning to newly-generated TRU materials. A major component will be transuranic SNM, currently managed in safeguards-protected vaults around the weapons complex. As DOE and NNSA continue to consolidate and shrink the weapons complex footprint, it is expected that significant quantities of transuranic SNM will be declared surplus to the nation's needs. Safeguards termination of SNM varies due to the wide range of attractiveness level of the potential material that may be directly discarded as waste. To enhance the efficiency of shipping waste with high TRU fissile content to WIPP, DOE designed an over-pack container, similar to the pipe component, called the criticality control over-pack, which will significantly enhance the efficiency of disposal. Hundreds of shipments of transuranic SNM, suitably packaged to meet WIPP waste acceptance criteria and with safeguards terminated have been successfully emplaced at WIPP (primarily from the Rocky Flats site clean-up) since WIPP opened. DOE expects that thousands more may eventually result from SNM consolidation efforts throughout the weapons complex. (authors)},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22293658}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012},
month = {Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012}
}

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