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GAO: Clarification of HLW definition could save DOE billions
A clearer definition of what constitutes high-level radioactive waste could save the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management “tens of billions of dollars” in waste management costs and accelerate its cleanup schedule by decades, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
DOE-EM’s efforts to manage waste resulting from legacy spent nuclear fuel reprocessing have been hindered for decades by the ambiguity of the statutory definition of HLW as laid out in the Atomic Energy Act and Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the report states. While admitting that the DOE has taken steps to overcome this ambiguity, the GAO says that the department has not fully evaluated all available opportunities to treat and dispose of waste more economically as either transuranic or low-level radioactive waste.
Jacques Duco, Maria Trotabas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 1 | August 1989 | Pages 104-119
Technical Paper | TMI-2: Materials Behavior / Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27641
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the framework of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations Task Group on Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2), the Commissariat ??? I’Energie Atomique examined five samples retrieved from the damaged reactor core: a slightly damaged fuel rod chunk from assembly L1 of the core external row, a rod remnant in position C7 hanging from the assembly head, and three core bore rocks from both the ceramic and agglomerate regions of the damaged core. The analyses include visual observation, immersion density, metallography, wavelength dispersive X-ray analysis, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetry, gamma spectroscopy, and neutron activation analysis. The information gained provides assessments of the maximum local temperatures reached during the accident, an insight into a possible fuel degradation mechanism for the rod in position C7, and information on fission product and control or structural material behavior. Such data, involving a small number of samples, will be added to those from other contributing laboratories to obtain an extensive data base, to try to understand the TMI-2 accident, and, presumably, to avoid the recurrence of a core melt on the basis of lessons to be learned.