Key Aspects of the H12 Safety Case

2000 ◽  
Vol 663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Umeki
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
General Public ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Atomic Energy Commission ◽  
Management Program ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Safety Case ◽  
Geological Formation ◽  
High Level ◽  
Key Aspects

ABSTRACTIn Japan, as outlined in the overall high-level radioactive waste (HLW) management program defined by the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, 1994), HLW from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel will be immobilized in a glass matrix and stored for a period of 30 to 50 years to allow cooling. It will then be disposed of in a deep geological formation. Pursuant to the overall HLW management program, an organization with responsibility for implementing HLW disposal will be established around the year 2000. This will be followed by site selection and characterization, demonstration of disposal technology, establishment of the necessary legal infrastructure, relevant licensing applications and repository construction, with the objective of starting repository operation by the 2030s and no later than the mid 2040s.The HLW disposal program is currently in the research and development (R&D) phase and the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) has been assigned as the leading organization responsible for R&D activities. The aim of the R&D activities at the current stage is to provide a scientific and technical basis for the geological disposal of HLW in Japan and to promote understanding of the safety concept not only in the scientific and technical community but also by the general public. One of the features of the R&D program is that its progress is documented at appropriate intervals, with a view to clearly determining the level of achievement of the program and to promote understanding and acceptance of the geological disposal strategy by the general public. As a major milestone, the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC, now JNC) submitted a first progress report, referred to as H3 (PNC, 1992), in September 1992.

Deep Geological Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste

2015 ◽  
pp. 367-399
Author(s):  
Želimir Veinović ◽  
Biljana Kovačević Zelić ◽  
Dubravko Domitrović
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
High Level Waste ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal ◽  
Safety Cases ◽  
High Level

Management of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SF) and High-Level Waste (HLW) is one of the most important and challenging problems of the modern world. Otherwise a clean, cheap, constant, and secure way to produce electricity, nuclear power plants create large amounts of highly hazardous waste. Repositories—deep Geological Disposal Facilities (GDF)—for these types of waste must prevent radionuclides from reaching the biosphere, for up to 1,000,000 years, migrating from a deep (more than 300m), stable geological environment. At present, there are no operating GDFs for SF and/or HLW, mostly due to the difficult and complex task of preparing safety cases and licensing. The purpose of this chapter is to validate the generic R&D activities in this area and present alternative concepts of Radioactive Waste (RW) management: retrievability, reversibility, regional GDFs, long-term storage, and deep borehole disposal, demonstrating the main engineering tasks in solving the problem of RW management and disposal.

scholarly journals Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste in Ukraine: History, Current State, Prospects

2017 ◽  
pp. 38-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Shestopalov ◽  
Iu. Shybetskyi
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Safety Assessment ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
High Level Waste ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Current State ◽  
Geological Repository ◽  
High Level

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of geological repository development in Ukraine for the disposal of high-level waste and, possibly, of spent nuclear fuel. The data on state policy, activities and plans for disposal of radioactive waste, as well as on the results of scientific research aimed at the development of a geological repository are summarized. These data include siting, development of geological disposal concepts and safety assessment of selected concepts. Based on the analysis of the listed data, the main problems and further actions are identified.

Immobilization and geological disposal of nuclear fuel waste

1984 ◽  
Vol 62 (8) ◽  
pp. 979-985
Author(s):  
J. C. Tait
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Glass Ceramics ◽  
Management Program ◽  
Crystalline Materials ◽  
Dissolution Behaviour ◽  
Geological Formation ◽  
High Level ◽  
Radionuclide Release ◽  
Interim Storage ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Waste

The Canadian Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Program is developing methods for the safe disposal of both used nuclear fuel and fuel recycle waste. The disposal strategy is based on interim storage of the used fuel, immobilization of either used fuel or recycle waste, and disposal, deep in a stable geological formation in the Canadian Shield. The disposal concept proposes a multibarrier system to inhibit the release of the radioactive waste from the disposal vault. The principal components of the multibarrier system are (i) the waste form in whch the radionuclides are immobilized, (ii) engineered barriers including high integrity containers, buffers and backfills designed to retard the movement of groundwaters in the disposal vault, and (iii) the natural barrier provided by the massive geological formation itself. The research programs to investigate this concept are discussed briefly. Several different waste forms are being developed for the immobilization of high-level fuel recycle waste, including glass, glass-ceramics and crystalline materials. Dissolution of these materials in groundwater is the only likely scenario that could lead to radionuclide release. The factors that influence the aqueous dissolution behaviour of these materials are reviewed.

scholarly journals Nuclear Data Uncertainty Quantification in Criticality Safety Evaluations for Spent Nuclear Fuel Geological Disposal

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6499
Author(s):  
Matthias Frankl ◽  
Mathieu Hursin ◽  
Dimitri Rochman ◽  
Alexander Vasiliev ◽  
Hakim Ferroukhi
Keyword(s):  
Uncertainty Quantification ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Nuclear Data ◽  
Data Uncertainty ◽  
Evaluation Methodology ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Fuel Assemblies ◽  
Criticality Safety

Presently, a criticality safety evaluation methodology for the final geological disposal of Swiss spent nuclear fuel is under development at the Paul Scherrer Institute in collaboration with the Swiss National Technical Competence Centre in the field of deep geological disposal of radioactive waste. This method in essence pursues a best estimate plus uncertainty approach and includes burnup credit. Burnup credit is applied by means of a computational scheme called BUCSS-R (Burnup Credit System for the Swiss Reactors–Repository case) which is complemented by the quantification of uncertainties from various sources. BUCSS-R consists in depletion, decay and criticality calculations with CASMO5, SERPENT2 and MCNP6, respectively, determining the keff eigenvalues of the disposal canister loaded with the Swiss spent nuclear fuel assemblies. However, the depletion calculation in the first and the criticality calculation in the third step, in particular, are subject to uncertainties in the nuclear data input. In previous studies, the effects of these nuclear data-related uncertainties on obtained keff values, stemming from each of the two steps, have been quantified independently. Both contributions to the overall uncertainty in the calculated keff values have, therefore, been considered as fully correlated leading to an overly conservative estimation of total uncertainties. This study presents a consistent approach eliminating the need to assume and take into account unrealistically strong correlations in the keff results. The nuclear data uncertainty quantification for both depletion and criticality calculation is now performed at once using one and the same set of perturbation factors for uncertainty propagation through the corresponding calculation steps of the evaluation method. The present results reveal the overestimation of nuclear data-related uncertainties by the previous approach, in particular for spent nuclear fuel with a high burn-up, and underline the importance of consistent nuclear data uncertainty quantification methods. However, only canister loadings with UO2 fuel assemblies are considered, not offering insights into potentially different trends in nuclear data-related uncertainties for mixed oxide fuel assemblies.

Durability of potential plutonium wasteforms under repository conditions

2012 ◽  
Vol 76 (8) ◽  
pp. 2911-2918 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Deissmann ◽  
S. Neumeier ◽  
G. Modolo ◽  
D. Bosbach
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Reactivity ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Aqueous Environments ◽  
Safety Case ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Uk ◽  
High Level ◽  
Radionuclide Release

AbstractSeparated stocks of UK civil plutonium are currently held as a zero value asset in storage, as there is no final decision about whether they should be treated as a resource for future use as nuclear fuel or as waste. Irrespective of future UK government strategies regarding plutonium, at least a portion of the UK civil plutonium inventory will be designated for geological disposal. In this context, we performed a high-level review of the performance of potential wasteforms for the disposal of separated civil plutonium. The key issues considered were the durability and chemical reactivity of the wasteforms in aqueous environments and the long-term radionuclide release under conditions relevant to geological disposal. The major findings of the review, relevant not only to the situation in the UK but to plutonium disposal in general, are summarized in this paper. The review showed that, in the event of a decision being taken to declare plutonium as a waste for disposal, more systematic studies would be required to constrain the wasteform performance under repository conditions in order to derive realistic source terms for a safety case.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document