Waste Management Symposium - Yucca Mountain
February 26 and 28; Tucson, AZ
Panel: US DOE Yucca Mountain Update: High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) and Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Disposal
February 26, 2007
Ward Sproat, Director; DOE-Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Mgmt.
Program Key Milestones:
- Focus on License Application (LA) submittal no later than June 2008.
- 2017 date for opening the repository is the best achievable and assumes a 3-year Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license approval timeframe. Expect that to take up to 4 years though, and litigation for 2+ years, so realistically 2020 or 2021.
Program Strategic Objectives:
1) New LA approach will allow for a quick process, docketing and turnaround.
2) Train competent OCRWM office to advance the Yucca Mountain project and run it.
3) Spent Fuel Contracts - address the federal government's mounting liability regarding the failure to accept industry's SNF (could amount to ½ billion per year).
4) Develop and begin implementation of a transportation plan. Has been under-funded since it has been considered an issue of future importance, but we should be making it a priority now. Get states and locals involved in all aspects. Fully behind the National Academy of Sciences study recommendations (see below). Currently looking into how to meet those recommendations.
FY2008 Budget:
$494.5M
$202.5 from the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) - $19.5 billion currently in fund, receiving $750 million more per year.
$292 from Defense Waste Fund
Areas of Senior Mgmt Attention:
LA
Project Status Reviews
Strategic Licensing Decisions
The Organization
Business Processes
Staffing
Mgmt Development
Culture
Quality
Corrective Action Program
The Congress
Education
Building Credibility
Ted Feigenbaum, General Manager; Bechtel/SAIC, LLC
BSC is the prime contractor to DOE on the Yucca Mountain Project.
LA consists of 6,000 pages of general info and safety analysis.
Yucca Mountain Project:
Crest of mountain is 4,600-4,900 feet above see level.
150,000 acres of federal land surround it.
Video of surface facility layout – including different canister receipt facilities for defense, wet, SNF wastes, etc.
Video of emplacement. Can boar more drifts while emplacing. 110 drifts (1,000 feet below surface and above water table – 100 waste packages in each.
Project allows for emplacement over a couple of decades. Could close up after that or reprocess, etc. if another use is found.
Dr. J. Russell Dyer, Director, Office of the Chief Scientist; DOE-OCRWM
In the last year, Sandia National Laboratory has been chosen as the lead lab for the Yucca Mountain project.
Ongoing and planned activities:
Scientific investigations supporting the LA - operational and post-closure (10,000-1 million years)
Focused areas of study:
1) Infiltration studies (based on present day climate, monsoon, and glacial).
2) Seismic: Pre-closure design effort, post-closure cumulative effects from multiple events/failures.
3) Probabilistic Volcanic Hazard Analysis – have found nothing in Yucca region. Documentation will be provided in FY2008.
77 waste shipping sites (includes 5 DOE sites) around the country.
Looking to purchase 120-150 casks for shipments.
In development stages for TAD (transportation, aging, and disposal) canister – want to choose by 2009-2013. Testing in 2015 timeframe.
Partnering with the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for escort rail cars – will purchase 120.
Developing routes:
Broad public involvement, workshops, papers.
Preliminary set of routes will be identified by 2013 – not final as shipments/rail lines/regulations will change.
Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) - funds emergency response:
Funding for emergency preparedness training and technical assistance.
Will publish papers on how this will be done.
Expect 80 grants when fully operational.
Developing Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for potential Caliente Corridor and Mina rail routes.
National Transportation Plan - provided to Transportation External Coordination Working Group (TEC) members, includes:
Cask development
Rail car development
Facility development
Route planning
Support for emergency preparedness and technical assistance
Stakeholder interactions
Demonstrations and exercises
Draft of plan to be done soon, want comments by spring, final to be completed by the end of the year.
Allen Benson, Director, Office of External Affairs; DOE-OCRWM
His office is to keep the public informed and increase interactions with stakeholders. They provide tours, website, info line, promotional materials.
Funding is given to affected units of government and the University in NV – over $450 million since the NWPA of the 1980s. (Nye is the host county. Clark County is nearby and includes Las Vegas.)
8 scoping meetings have been conducted in NV and DC for the upcoming Rail EIS and Supplemental Yucca EIS.
Opened a new center in Parump (city near the repository) for information and administration.
Q&A
Volcanic failure near Yucca?
- Dyer: Volcanic activity doesn't pose a risk, no magma activity in the area. Youngest event was 70,000 years ago. Probability of volcanic event coming into repository 1.7 times 10 to the -8. Must look at real consequences – there is no perfect site.
How was remote-handled waste shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)?
- By truck, type B cask according to NRC regulations. DOE has similar casks.
Why won't OCRWM ship by truck?
- Truck is part of the mix, but rail preferred because of the number of shipments. Dedicated rail avoids additional stops and shortens time enroute.
Comment: Yucca is granite rock, which puts off its own natural radiation.
Will the routing meetings be public?
- Some are being conducted through TEC. May contact OCRWM to join.
Why won't you be picking routes until 2013?
- It is possible to do so now; will chose suites or routes and work with the public before 2013, but don't need final routes before then. Want routes to be picked when funding becomes available – both around 2013.
What if recycling becomes technically feasible under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)?
- NRC requires that waste at Yucca be retrievable until the repository is ready to finally close; likely 35-40 years after it begins accepting waste. Performance monitoring for about 100 years (first drift highly observed and instrumented). Until this is done, NRC will not authorize Yucca to close.
Germany repository design includes backfill.
- Backfill not in current design. Could be revisited after repository filling.
Design basis – hot and cold facilities? First in, first out?
- Evaluation stage is over and determined to mix. 1.45 kilowatts per foot.
Could anything disrupt submission of the LA in FY2008?
- No, unless funding is completely cut off.
What about when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) releases its radiation standard for 1,000,000 years out?
- Won't affect the LA, only whether the NRC can accept the license. NV will certainly bring a lawsuit whatever the EPA decision is.
Are public meeting really interactive or just talking federal heads?
- Federal government does have to respond to comments. Initially with words, if valid, followed up with actions.
Budget differentiation – receiving more funds now from defense waste side, whereas defense component will only take up about 20% of capacity in the repository.
- Defense paid nothing into project until mid-90s. Just about caught up now.
Critical Issues for Yucca Mountain Transportation
February 26, 2007
"Going the Distance?" A National Academies Report on Spent Fuel and High-Level Waste Transportation
Kevin Crowley, Study Director; NAS-Nuclear Radiation Studies Board (presented by a colleague)
"Going the Distance?" (actually two studies):
Initiated by NAS
Original task:
Assess risk levels of SNF and HLW transport in US
Identify key technical and societal concerns
Recommend steps to address them
Expanded study tasks by congressional mandate:
Approached by DOT to assess manner in which DOE selects routes for shipment of research reactor SNF b/t its facilities and recommend improvements.
Pre-publication report released in Feb. 2006
Technical and disciplinary (social science) expertise on the committee. Chairman - Neal Lane, physicist, formerly in Clinton administration.
Bottom-Line Messages:
- No fundamental technical barriers to the safe transport of SNF and HLW in US.
- A number of social and institutional challenges to the successful initial implementation of large-quantity shipping programs (hundreds to thousands of metric tons).
- Malevolent acts against SNF/HLW shipments are a major technical and societal concern.
- Committee unable to perform an in-depth examination because of information constraints. Security was not the main concern when the study was conceptualized prior to 9/11 (so committee not set up to accept classified info.).
- Independent examination of transportation security should be carried out prior to the commencement of large-quantity shipments to a federal repository or interim storage. Now security a societal concern - so NAS recommends independent (credible) study for this reason, not because it saw a specific need.
Chapter 2 - Package Performance/Testing:
- Current international standards and US regulations are adequate.
- May be a very small number of extreme accident conditions involving very-long-duration fires that could compromise containment effectiveness. Only concern.
- USNRC should undertake additional analyses of these scenarios that bound expected real world accident conditions, and implement operational controls/restrictions as necessary to reduce the chances that such conditions might be encountered.
- Full-scale testing for determining how packages will perform under both regulatory and credible extra-regulatory conditions
- Full-scale testing should continue to be used as part of integrated testing programs to validate package performance
- Full-scale testing of packages to deliberately cause their destruction should not be required.
Chapter 3 - Transportation Risk (historical analysis of testing, etc.):
- The radiological health and safety risks associated with the transport of SNF/HLW are well understood and generally low, with the possible exception of risks from releases in extreme accidents involving very-long duration fires.
- Likelihood of such accidents appears to be very small - their occurrence can be further reduced through relatively simple operational controls and restrictions.
- Societal risks - 2 - health and safety, and social risks. Social risks for SNF/HLW transport pose important challenges to implementers. Social risks - perceptions of risk that determine where people live (housing values), where they work, where they shop.
- Transportation planners can take early and proactive steps to establish formal mechanisms for gathering advice about social risks and their management.
- DOE should create a risk advisory group to obtain advice on social risk characterization, communication, and mitigation.
- Selected Results on Comparative Risk
Report provides quantitative comparisons of radiological risks for normal and accident conditions of transport.
Normal - risk ladder comparing estimated exposures for people involved in Yucca Mountain transport relative to other common exposure types.
YM worker - 2 mRem (from EIS). People along Yucca Mountain route extremely low exposure - similar to roundtrip short airline flight.
Accidents - Complementary cumulative distribution functions for accidents involving SNF and other hazardous materials.
No hazardous materials fell below SNF in terms of probability of accident.
Chapter 4 - Research Reactor SNF Routing:
- DOE's procedures for selecting routes within the US for shipments of foreign research reactor SNF appear on the whole to be adequate and reasonable.
- DOT routing regulations are a satisfactory means of ensuring safe transportation provided that shippers actively and systematically consult with states and tribes along potential routes and states follow designation procedures prescribed by DOT.
Chapter 5 - Improving SNF/HLW Transportation in US (looking forward):
- Most findings/recommendations apply to other large-quantity shipping programs (e.g. PFS).
- Committee did not attempt to undertake a detailed programmatic review of the DOE transportation program.
- Recent changes in this program are mentioned in the report.
- Strongly endorses DOE's decisions to ship SNF/HLW by mostly rail using dedicated trains.
- Recommends DOE fully implement these decisions before commencing large-quantity shipments to repository, and also examine the feasibility of further reducing the need for cross-country truck shipments (or all resources may go to trucking, with none left for rail).
- DOE should make public its suite of preferred highway and rail routes as soon as practicable to support state, tribal, local planning.
- DOE should follow the practices of its research reactor SNF transport program of involving states and tribes in these route selections.
- DOE should negotiate with commercial SNF owners to ship older fuel first to a federal repository or federal interim storage. Should these negotiations prove ineffective, Congress should consider legislative remedies. (NEI - industry wants hottest out first).
- DOE should initiate transport to the federal repository through a pilot program involving relatively short, logistically simple movements of older fuel from closed reactors (enough fuel at some sites to support shipping campaigns for year or two).
- DOE should begin to immediately execute its emergency responder preparedness responsibilities by taking four steps detailed in report.
- Federal agencies should promptly complete the job of developing, applying, and disclosing consistent, reasonable, and understandable criteria for protecting sensitive info about SNF/HLW shipments. They should commit to the open sharing of info that does not require such protection and should facilitate timely access to such info.
- DOE Secretary and US Congress should examine the following options for changing the organizational structure of DOE's program for transporting SNF/HLW to a federal repository to increase its chances of success:
Quasi-independent DOE office reporting to upper-level management.
Quasi-government corporation
Fully private organization operated by the commercial nuclear industry
Current transport program has to compete with the repository program, etc., and not getting enough attention/funding. Recycling, interim storage may require additional transportation needs, so should be broken off from just Yucca repository program.
(Different from WIPP and FRR shipments by waste type, quantity of shipments, and origin/destination).
FRR routing choices for shipments appear adequate and reasonable. DOE should follow process and involve states and tribes.
NEPA Approach to an Expanded Yucca Mountain Project Rail Alignment
Judith Holm, Director; DOE-OCRWM (presented for Gary Lanthrum, Director, Office of Logistics Mgmt.)
Ms. Holm is responsible for transportation operations, which includes institutional aspects.
Record of Decision made in April 2004 on transportation – mostly rail and use of Caliente Corridor.
Work began immediately on draft Rail Alignment EIS. But in May, 2006, Walker River Paiute tribe allowed Mina Route to be included for study.
(13 rail routes originally studied in preparing Yucca FEIS. 5 chosen for further analysis.)
Considerations of whether to include Mina:
Would push EIS back at least 9 months.
Could be a shorter route.
Has existing rail bed in certain areas.
Preliminary analysis completed in August 2006 found Mina to be feasible.
Project decided it needed to supplement the Yucca Mountain EIS to include the Mina Route in addition to a Rail Alignment EIS. Reviewed previous 5 corridor contenders, but none had changed in terms of making it a better fit than Caliente or Mina. (Yucca Mountain EIS also to take into account repository design changes.)
Rail line development objectives merged with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Process has been costly and pushed the overall deadline back, but we need to ensure we are picking the best route to meet the program's purpose and need.
Draft expected out this year. Final record of decision by June of 2008 to match timing of LA submission.
Yucca Mountain Transportation Security Issues
James David Ballard, PhD; Dept. of Sociology, California State Univ. (with State of NV)
Symbolism of terrorist use of radiological material impacts social fears to a higher degree than the actual risk warrants.
All interested parties agree that truck and rail casks are vulnerable to terrorist attack (using single, current-generation weapon).
Don't agree on consequences.
Uncertainties:
Costs
TADs – incompatible with dry storage
Older/newer fuel shipment strategy - not requiring older fuel first
Intermodal shipments
GNEP
NV doesn't agree with NAS report on:
Taking mgmt. of the project away from the federal government in favor of an independent or private company because then it would lose government accountability.
Disagree with beginning construction of the rail corridor.
Etc.
Recommend:
Shelter existing stocks of SNF in place for 30-50 years and ship older fuel first.
Address shipment vulnerability in repository transportation planning process.
Use existing or emerging social scientific methodologies to assess threats and develop countermeasures.
Etc.
DOE Initiative to Identify Routes for Shipping Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste to Yucca Mountain
Judith Holm for Jay Jones; DOE-OCRWM
Routing project supports determination of 180(c) funding allocation – required in NWPA.
Follows NAS recommendations on routing.
TEC Routing Topic Group Routing Analysis Process:
Identify draft routing criteria.
Develop final criteria and practices.
Conduct routing analysis to identify candidate suites of national rail and highway routes.
Identify national suite of rail and highway routes (final decision by DOE).
Determine operational factors with industry (trucking and rail).
Review previous shipping campaigns to:
Identify oversight organizations
Determine federal/industry guidance and regulatory requirements
Identify routing principles
Conduct routing assessment
Review SRG routing studies
Develop national suite of routes
Previous shipping campaigns – foreign research reactors (FRR), West Valley SNF, WIPP, domestic research reactors.
Routing principles to include:
Safety
Regulations
Operational flexibility, security
Efficiency
Commercial practicality
Future benchmarks:
TEC to finalize criteria by end of 2007, identify preliminary suite of routes by end of 2008. Doing early to test 180(c) funding.
2013 – readiness testing with "final" suite of routes.
Yucca Mountain - Perspective from around the Mountain
February 28, 2007
Radionuclide Transport from Yucca Mountain and Inter-basin Flow in Death Valley
Dr. Chris Fridrich, US Geological Survey (with John Bredehoeft)
Inyo County Concerns:
Radioactive nuclide transport through the lower carbonate aquifer (LCA) into Death Valley springs.
Impact of the degradation of the upper gradient in the LCA on Furnace Creek spring flows, and on the potential of inducing radioactive nuclide transport from Yucca Mountain.
Used Winograd/Thordarson Inter-basin Flow Conceptual Model.
Evidence:
Geochemistry of carbonate springs and well waters
Borehole and geophysical survey data
Results of groundwater numerical models
Several Models Used:
US Geological Survey (USGS) Regional Aquifer System Analysis
Death Valley Regional Models
Steeply Dipping Fault Model
Carbonate rock underlies Yucca Mountain, Amargosa Valley and Death Valley. The rock is brittle, large open spaces (caverns), joint and faults enlarged by dissolution, carbonate rocks border each other.
A well could be drilled into the paleo-carbonate aquifer – need to do so by 30 meters, have 5,000 meters.
Calculated travel time from Yucca Mt. to Death Valley is less than 50 years. Could be 500 years or 5,000 based on porosity. Expect 50-500 years, but will be doing more sophisticated testing on this.
Paleo-carbonate a good pathway for radionuclide transport from Yucca Mountain.
Q&A
I understand the theory of transport, but why do you assume radionuclides in it?
- This is to show what happens should radionuclides be released.
Didn't include dispersion or dissolution, etc.?
- Correct. Not enough funding. Should do it though.
Yucca Mountain: Technical Issues and Evaluation Methods: Is it a Suitable Site?
Allison Macfarlane, George Mason University (absent, but paper read by host)
Oxidizing environment a controversial choice for a repository.
DOE shouldn't rely on Total System Performance Assessments (TSPA).
Choosing Yucca was based on the NWPA.
Other repository concepts:
Sweden – heavily engineered.
Germany – strong geologically.
Should have at least two sites so geographically just.
Macfarlane doesn't suggest Yucca be scrapped, but does suggest:
DOE deemphasize scientific assessments because they can't be proven and seem misleading.
Use technical judgment to justify - multiple barriers and techniques to analyze the site.
Compare Yucca to other existing or planned sites where substantial data exists - Sweden, Finland, France, WIPP.
False sense of urgency to dispose of waste. Good for waste to age on-site to reduce radioactivity.
Comments from the assembly:
- TSPA model is based on technical data.
- How are we to compare sites without performance assessment (TSPA)?
- TSPA model is about exploring the range of uncertainty given the scientific data, not predicting. There are definitely uncertainties though.
- (from colleague of Macfarlane) She knows that TSPA is based on science, but is there enough scientific data to make the TSPA accurate or worthwhile?
- NAS recommended TSPA. Regulators (EPA, etc.) required it.
- Agrees with Macfarlane that burial would have been safer if done under the water table. Should re-open the types of environments to be considered for the second repository (crystalline rock).
- If we request that Congress change some decisions in law, such as considerations for sites, why not change them all, such as the arbitrary limit on the volume of waste Yucca may accept?
- NWPA does not exclude granite sites.
- Looking for an adequately safe site, not a perfect site (doesn't exist).
- The repository program is certainly not moving too fast. If we follow Macfarlane method for a second repository (looking for the perfect location geographically and socially), could cost tens of billions more dollars.
- Whether we are moving too slowly with the repository process is questionable. There was limited time from passage of the NWPA Amendments and the exclusive selection of Yucca Mountain.
- Need to pick a plan and stick to it – not what happened when zeroing in on Yucca Mountain. Because US went back on its idea to study several sites, didn't gain Nevada's buy in and never will.
- Ethical considerations for moving forward quickly - this is our waste to deal with, not our children's.
- US is a signatory of the Waste Convention, which requires that countries do their best under prevailing circumstances. When Yucca is licensed, the US will need to defend arguments for it on an international scale. Paper merits a lot of consideration.
Potential for the Localized Corrosion of Alloy 22 Waste Packages in Multiple-Salt Deliquescent Brines in the Yucca Mountain Repository
Mick Apted, Monitor Scientific (with Electric Power Research Institute)
Two potential mechanisms for wetting waste package surface during hottest part of thermal transient:
Seepage
Deliquescence of salts in dust deposits on waste package surface
Will multi-salt deliquescent brines form? If only Co2 and water exist, then yes. If all volatile species considered (more likely), than much reduced chance.
Safety at Yucca Mountain not tied exclusively to long-lived canister – other technical and geologic barriers and isolation processes exist.
Final Result - Brine corrosion of waste packages not likely; Yucca will meet safety standards over time, even if packages fail.
Evaluation of Thermal Capacity for SNF Disposal at Yucca Mountain
W. Zhou, Monitor Scientific, LLC.
Results found that a two-fold increase in capacity at Yucca (from current 63,000 rate) is possible.
Can add two more drifts within each 81 meter drift (don't need larger space).
Suggests keeping repository open and ventilated for at least 50-150 years while packages cool. Re-saturation as packages and drifts cool – drifts very dry and pressure high when at hottest point.
Analysis of Multiple Seismic Events on the Long-term Isolation Performance of a YM Repository.
Mick Apted, Monitor Scientific, LLC
Waste package (WP) on waste package collision:
Reasonable Expectation - Neither immediate mechanical failure, nor delayed failure.
Conservative – will mechanically fail after second collision.
15.5% failed at 1 million years with seismic action. 14.8% with no seismic events.
Static Loading:
Reasonable - Would require a 40 meter high column of unconsolidated rock with a bulking factor of 1.33 to induce plastic strain on WP. Not possible.
Conservative – some strain over time.
Dynamic Loading:
Reasonable - Impact of ejected rock on aged package caused some damage.
Conservative – failure over time.
44% of packages would fail at 1 million years if allowed to continually hit each other and receive rock fall with seismic events. Yucca Mountain a very low seismic activity area.
Reasonable Expectation Case: No seismic impacts on safety.
Conservative Case: Releases well below 15 mrem/yr limit out to 1 million years.
Q&A
What about glacial impacts?
- Ice sheets history in Sweden affects packages. Not apparent at Yucca Mountain.
Did you take into account deflection of drip shield? Drip shield impact on package?
- No, but hope to. Don't expect those uncertainties to push dose rates above the limits though (even if 60% of packages fail for example), since at the now conservative percentage, still come in many orders of magnitude below the limit.
Study based on current limit on Yucca capacity?
- Capacity is not relevant.
Your dose numbers look much lower than I've seen before.
- Difference between reasonable expectation (which EPA requires) and very conservative approach taken by DOE and NRC.
Comment: Shouldn't dose rates be decreasing as fuel ages?
Comment: 99.9% or more of isotopes will stay in repository. Very small escape.
A Holistic, Rapid-Deployment Solution for Used Nuclear Fuel Mgmt in US
Leif Eriksson, P.G. – Sweden
Suggestions:
Locate all SNF mgmt facilities at the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
Locate all SNF mgmt facilities underground.
Engage the nuclear utilities in a leadership role and integrate local community and state representatives staff in the mgmt. organization.
Benefits in co-locating mgmt facilities underground at NTS:
Increased national/homeland security.
Enhanced public and environmental protection.
Significant time and cost savings if the mgmt. organizations perform.
Increased intellectual and financial diversity and sustainability in the host state.
Q&A
Concept of an int'l repository?
- Jeopardizes own nation's ability to dispose of waste. NIMBY problems.
Comment: Most in Nye county support the repository – believe it is safe. But it is those outside the county who have the political strength and fight against it. Yucca Mountain is a political problem, not a scientific one.
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