End Points for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste in Russia and the United States (2003) / Chapter Skim
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2. Spent Nuclear Fuel and End Points
2. Spent Nuclear Fuel and End Points
Pages 31-64
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From page 31... ...
. 2.1.1 Power-Reactor Spent Fuel in the Russian Federation Of the four types of power reactors that operate in Russia, two types generate most of the power: boiling water graphite reactors (the RBMK reactors)
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From page 32... ...
The other two types of reactors are the liquid metal fast reactors (BN series) , only one of which, the BN-600, now operates as a commercial power reactor, (the BOR-60 operates as a pilot power station)
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Spent Nuclear Fuel and End Points TABLE 2.1 Data on SNF Inventory in Russia 33 Nuclear Power Plants SNF Inventory Number of and Other at the End of Reactor Type Operating Nuclear Facilities 2001, MTHM Reactors Leningrad 3,720 RBMK-1000 4 Smolensk 1,830 RBMK-1000 3 Kursk 3,230 RBMK-1000 4 Total RBMK 8,780 11 Balakovsk 344 VVER-1000 4 Kalininsk 172 VVER-1000 2 Novovoronezh 163 VVER-1000 1 Rostova VVER-1000 1 Total VVER-1000 679 8 Novovoronezh 71 VVER-440 2 Kolsk 1 12 VVER-440 4 Total VVER-440 183 6 Bilibinsk 123 EGP-6 4 Beloyarsk 59 BN-600 1 1 90 AMB Total Nuclear Power 10 020 30 Plants ' PA"Mayak" 486 NA Krasnoyarsk MCC 2,840 NA N I IAR 122 NA Kurchatov Research 3 NA Center IPPE 14 NA NIKIET 1 NA Tomsk SCC 32 NA Total for Russian 13,520 Federation aRostov is a new power plant and no SNF had been discharged as of the end of 2001. SOURCE: Shatalov (2002~.
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From page 35... ...
Spent fuel from VVER-1000 reactors is not currently reprocessed: After 3-5 years of storage in cooling pools at the power plants, the assemblies are shipped to a centralized storage facility at the Krasnoyarsk MCC. Eleven RBMK-1000 reactors operating in Russia generate 550 I\/THM of SNF (about 5,000 fuel assemblies)
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had accumulated from the transport nuclear installations at the Russian Navy's shore bases and floating technical bases (a refueling and service ship)
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(2002) report an inventory of roughly 28,500 spent fuel assemblies at 24 of the research reactors.
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2.2 SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL IN THE UNITED STATES As of December 31, 2001, the United States was storing approximately 45,000 MTHM (Holt 2002~7 of spent fuel from its civilian nuclear power plants at reactor sites and at centralized facilities (see Table 2.3) for eventual disposal in a geologic repository, and is producing new commercial SNF at a rate of about 2,000 MTHM per year.
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State Commercial Non-DOE Navy DOE-Owned Surplus Reactor Spent Fuel & Plutonium Fuel HLW Commercial Non-DOE Reactors Research (MTHM in Storage) Reactors Alabama Browns Ferry 3 units (1,032)
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. University of Maryland, College Park; National Institute of Standards and Technology; Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute; U.S.
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; West Valley Demonstration Projectd (26.8) New York Nine Mile Point 1,2 State University (656)
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* Rhode Island Atomic Energy Commission South Caro- Robinson 2 (153)
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c Commercial spent fuel storage site. ~ SNF at West Valley is owned by DOE; West Valley High-Level Waste is currently owned by New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA)
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NRC 1999~. 2.2.2 Government-Managed Spent Nuclear Fuel in the United States DOE currently manages approximately 2,500 MTHM of SNF (see Table 2.4)
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Processed to HLW at ANLW 61.3 45 Examples In foreign research reactors 14.3 Storage until repository dis- 2,465 posal (no further processing) Special treatment P recessed to H LW at S RS 23.9 Treatment at ORNL Y-12 0.27 plant Unknown Unknown 996 Sodium-bonded EBR-II and FFTF fuel HEU in Al plates in France, Pakistan, and four other nations N-Reactor fuel, fuel from isotope production reactors, ANP fuel 0.041 Cutting fines from SNF assay, MSRE fuel Declad EBR-II uranium metal fuel, declad uranium/thorium fuel Failed fuel from Rovert Unirradiated fuel for the N-reactor, FFTF, EBR-II Various fuel forms (unclad natural uranium, polyethylene matrices, alu minum)
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From page 46... ...
of naval spent nuclear fuel will exist by the year 2035." In 1996, DOE and the Navy decided to put the spent fuel at INEEL into dry storage using dual purpose canisters, which would serve both as storage containers at INEEL and as transport containers to a future repository (DOE 1 996a)
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Much of the highly enriched foreign research reactor fuel has been returned to the United States and resides at SRS and at ., INEEL, but approximately 2.7 MTHM of highly enriched fuel of lJ.S. origin are still at research reactors in over 30 nations (including small amounts in Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the Philippines)
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From page 48... ...
Much of this SNF is from government sources, but some is from commercial reactors. Treatment includes activities such as vacuum drying the NReactor spent fuel that is sitting in the storage pools.
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49 '4There is a program of cooperation between the United States and Russia on disposition of excess weapons plutonium. The program, funded through the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, covers waste fond development as well as plutonium storage, packaging, and transportation; spent fuel storage, packaging and transportation; and treatment of plutonium-bearing wastes.
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All methods of treating spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste lead to some highly radioactive material that must be sequestered at least for many centuries. A recent report from the National Research Council (2001 a)
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The United States has large amounts of HLW from nuclear weapons programs and large amounts of SNF, primarily from operation of commercial reactors to generate electricity. As discussed in other sections, the defense waste is stored in tanks, some of which have leaked and many of which have waste mixtures that are poorly characterized.
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From page 52... ...
Some SNF is a potential target for theft, because the fissile and other radioactive constituents could be used to construct a nuclear or radiological weapon. The technology for interim storage of SNF in surface facilities is well established, and generally falls into one of two categories: wet storage or dry storage.
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Spent Nuclear Fuel and End Points em · ~ .~.,...,.~..i'.1 ..
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In most dry storage designs, the spent fuel assemblies (SFAs) are sealed in an inert atmosphere inside a steel canister that is welded shut.
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Spent fuel assemblies can be loaded directly into the casks, which are typically made of steel or steelreinforced concrete with a steel liner. The limited number of assemblies in each cask or silo, and the lack of water acting as moderator surrounding the SNF reduce the concerns about criticality (unless the fuel is highly enriched)
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From page 56... ...
It is anticipated that the roughly 8-meterlong RBMK fuel assemblies will have to be cut in two to fit inside the dry storage casks. Russia does not currently ship any RBMK SNF, with the exception of transportation of half-assemblies for post-reactor tests in hot cells.
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From page 57... ...
can be selected. Spent nuclear fuel from the Northern Fleet's NPSs that has not yet been shipped for reprocessing at PA"Mayak" is currently stored in shore technical bases at Andreeva Bay and at the Gremikha settlement, as well as in storage tanks of floating technical bases (FTBs)
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From page 58... ...
The facility was planned to store SNF from light-water reactors of the first generation of NPSs and spent retrievable elements from NPSs with liqu~d-metalcooled reactors. The storage facility consists of drained cooling ponds (100 SFA)
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2001; Nilsen and B0hmer 1994~. Lepse, the oldest of these FTBs, was used until 1 980 for reloading of nuclear fuel and for storage of fresh and spent nuclear fuel from nuclear-powered icebreakers Lenin, Arktika, and Sibir.
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2001~. Some SNF, particularly from older reactors, was shipped for storage offsite at independent spent fuel storage installations in Illinois at the Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant (674 MTHM)
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From page 61... ...
. 49% 9% 38% 4% reacted fuel or deposited sludge visibly present; "defected fuel" has definite evidence of cladding breach with reacted fuel escaping as oxide or sludge from the element; and "bad fuel" has gross cladding failure with substantial element dilation, clad splitting, element deformation, or fuel void.
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From page 62... ...
This fuel and fuel debris is currently planned to be disposed of in a geologic repository along with other spent fuel. Other fuel that has not yet been processed or treated includes fine particles from cutting SNF inside hot cells for assay, and the MSRE fuel, which is no longer molten.
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From page 63... ...
The spent fuel will sit in some form of interim storage until a repository is available. 63 The generators of the commercial SNF have historically been responsible for the costs of storing the SNF prior to disposal, but as schedules for disposal of the SNF are pushed into the future, lawsuits have been filed demanding that DOE cover the costs.
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From page 64... ...
End Points for High-Level Waste . ~ ~: ; ~ ~ Coronal for The U~,ci,.t,,,.,,6 ~ S,,, " 'I ' ,.
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