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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
DOE on track to deliver high-burnup SNF to Idaho by 2027
The Department of Energy said it anticipated delivering a research cask of high-burnup spent nuclear fuel from Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia to Idaho National Laboratory by fall 2027. The planned shipment is part of the High Burnup Dry Storage Research Project being conducted by the DOE with the Electric Power Research Institute.
As preparations continue, the DOE said it is working closely with federal agencies as well as tribal and state governments along potential transportation routes to ensure safety, transparency, and readiness every step of the way.
Watch the DOE’s latest video outlining the project here.
Kirk Drumheller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 24 | Number 3 | December 1974 | Pages 418-424
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A31505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
If a stable non-Earth intercept trajectory or orbit can be assured, extraterrestrial disposal offers the complete removal of long-lived nuclear waste constituents from Earth. The primary unfavorable features are that the concept deals with only part of the waste; possible launch safety problems exist, retrievability and monitoring are difficult, and the concept will require international agreements. Extraterrestrial disposal of the total waste constituents and of only the transuranic elements were considered. However, space disposal of the transuranics only is believed to be the most practical scheme, primarily because of the very high space transport cost per unit of weight. The implementation of space disposal of transuranic waste could be achieved with current technology. This technology is considered to include the space shuttle and the space tug, advanced vehicles that use existing engineering technology. The safety aspects for space disposal primarily include safety during launch and control of the extraterrestrial destination of the waste constituents. The potential for an abort that could cause a release of radionuclides during any one space launching is modestly high; however, relatively small amounts of waste constituents are associated with each launch; and package integrity is high even in an abort. The major energy consumption in space disposal is for propelling the waste to its final destination. This energy consumption for disposal of actinide waste is about 4 to 5 orders of magnitude less than the electrical energy from the original nuclear fuel, depending on the final space destination.