U.S. Nuclear Defense Waste Program Current Development and Key Research Areas

1985 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray D. Walton ◽  
Kenneth A. Chacey

AbstractThe United States has been engaged in defense nuclear activities for over 40 years. The primary goal of the Defense Waste and Byproducts Management Program is to develop technology which ensures the safe, permanent disposal of all defense nuclear waste. Programs are in place at each U.S. Department of Energy site which address long-term strategy for permanent disposal of waste generated as a result of defense operations. Technology is developed for assessing the hazards, environmental impact, and cost of each long-term disposition alternative for selection and implementation. This paper addresses the key research areas and major facilities associated with the long-term management of defense nuclear waste.

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 44-61
Author(s):  
Lindsay M. Sheridan ◽  
Raghavendra Krishnamurthy ◽  
Alicia M. Gorton ◽  
Will J. Shaw ◽  
Rob K. Newsom

AbstractThe offshore wind industry in the United States is gaining strong momentum to achieve sustainable energy goals, and the need for observations to provide resource characterization and model validation is greater than ever. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) operates two lidar buoys for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in order to collect hub height wind data and associated meteorological and oceanographic information near the surface in areas of interest for offshore wind development. This work evaluates the performance of commonly used reanalysis products and spatial approximation techniques using lidar buoy observations off the coast of New Jersey and Virginia, USA. Reanalysis products are essential tools for setting performance expectations and quantifying the wind resource variability at a given site. Long-term accurate observations at typical wind turbine hub heights have been lacking at offshore locations. Using wind speed observations from both lidar buoy deployments, biases and degrees of correspondence for the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications-2 (MERRA-2), the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), ERA5, and the analysis system of the Rapid Refresh (RAP) are examined both at hub height and near the surface. Results provide insights on the performance and uncertainty of using reanalysis products for long-term wind resource characterization. A slow bias is seen across the reanalyses at both deployment sites. Bias magnitudes near the surface are on the order of 0.5 m s−1 greater than their hub height counterparts. RAP and ERA5 produce the highest correlations with the observations, around 0.9, followed by MERRA-2 and NARR.


Author(s):  
Kimberly Gray ◽  
John Vienna ◽  
Patricia Paviet

In order to maintain the U.S. domestic nuclear capability, its scientific technical leadership, and to keep our options open for closing the nuclear fuel cycle, the Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) invests in various R&D programs to identify and resolve technical challenges related to the sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle. Sustainable fuel cycles are those that improve uranium resource utilization, maximize energy generation, minimize waste generation, improve safety and limit proliferation risk. DOE-NE chartered a Study on the evaluation and screening of nuclear fuel cycle options, to provide information about the potential benefits and challenges of nuclear fuel cycle options and to identify a relatively small number of promising fuel cycle options with the potential for achieving substantial improvements compared to the current nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. The identification of these promising fuel cycles helps in focusing and strengthening the U.S. R&D investment needed to support the set of promising fuel cycle system options and nuclear material management approaches. DOE-NE is developing and evaluating advanced technologies for the immobilization of waste issued from aqueous and electrochemical recycling activities including off-gas treatment and advanced fuel fabrication. The long-term scope of waste form development and performance activities includes not only the development, demonstration, and technical maturation of advanced waste management concepts but also the development and parameterization of defensible models to predict the long-term performance of waste forms in geologic disposal. Along with the finding of the Evaluation and Screening Study will be presented the major research efforts that are underway for the development and demonstration of waste forms and processes including glass ceramic for high-level waste raffinate, alloy waste forms and glass ceramics composites for HLW from the electrochemical processing of fast reactor fuels, and high durability waste forms for radioiodine.


Author(s):  
Padmanabha J. Prabhu ◽  
Damian A. Testa

The Steam Generator Asset Management Program (SGAMP) is a long term program designed to maximize the performance and reliability of the steam generators. The SGAMP focuses on plant specific conditions and hence is applicable to the original or the replacement steam generators. It is recommended that the utility and the vendor form a joint steam generator management team (SGMT) to develop, monitor and implement a long-term plan to address steam generator operation, maintenance and life extension goals. The SGMT will consist of representatives from operations, chemistry, maintenance and engineering functions and will be responsible for making decisions related to the steam generators. The charter of the SGMT is to develop a steam generator strategic plan that will cost-effectively manage steam generator options. The strategic plan is consistent with the Steam Generator Program Guidelines (NEI 97-06 in the United States). The strategic plan is a living document and is revised periodically to incorporate inspection results, new technology developments, lessons learned and industry experience. Cost-benefit analyses of strategies may be performed to prolong steam generator operability through steam generator performance modeling (tube degradation, fouling, etc.), diagnostic tools, regulatory strategy, condition monitoring and operational assessment strategy, and maintenance strategy. The SGMT will provide input regarding potential maintenance of the steam generators with schedule and cost impacts for each outage. It will also recommend engineering evaluations to be performed in support of program goals and will develop short- and long-term recommendations. These recommendations will address action plans, performance measures and results. Secondary side inspection and cleaning strategy should be developed (techniques and frequency) to maximize performance cost-effectively. This paper is based on Westinghouse experience gained by working with several pressurized water reactor (PWR) plant operators in the United States (US).


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyu Hou ◽  
Thomas W. Flaig

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States. For decades, the cornerstone of medical treatment for advanced prostate cancer has been hormonal therapy, intended to lower testosterone levels, known as Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT). The development of hormone-resistant prostate cancer (now termed castration-resistant prostate cancer:CRPC) remains the key roadblock in successful long-term management of prostate cancer. New advancements in medical therapy for prostate cancer have added to the hormonal therapy armamentarium. These new therapeutic agents not only provide a survival benefit but also show potential for reversing hormonal resistance in metastatic CRPC, and thus redefining hormonally sensitive disease.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jayne ◽  
Kristopher Kuhlman

<p> <span>The disposal of heat generating nuclear waste is increasingly becoming a concern for several countries worldwide. This issue is of particular concern for the United States because of the 364,000 m</span><sup><span>3</span></sup><span> of heat-generating nuclear waste currently in temporary storage. Numerous concepts for the disposal of heat generating nuclear waste have been investigated internationally, such as, mined repositories in crystalline, argillite, and salt formations, and deep borehole disposal. Currently, salt formations are being investigated as candidate disposal host rocks for heat-generating nuclear waste in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Salt formations may be an ideal host media due to salt’s extremely low permeability, high thermal conductivity, and self-healing capability. Salt lacks circulating groundwater, but it is not dry. Brine availability in salt has multiple implications for the safety and design of a nuclear waste storage facility. Brine transport is a potential off-site radionuclide transport vector, brine leads to corrosion of metallic and glass waste forms and waste packages, chloride in brine can reduce criticality concerns, and accumulated brine can provide back-pressure that resists long-term creep closure of porosity associated with mining the repository. In order to improve understanding of brine migration in heated salt, borehole heater experiments are being conducted at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The salt heater test collaboration aims to collect data to gain a better understanding of brine availability, transport, and thermal evolution of salt in response to heating up to 140 °C. Due to the complex nature and coupled processes that take place within bedded salt, this study will utilize 1D, 2D, and 3D numerical simulations of the salt heater test to deconvolve the parametric controls on brine availability and migration. The purpose of this study is two-fold, in addition to understanding the hydrogeology of salt formations, we utilize two different subsurface flow codes in a code comparison study, TOUGH and PFLOTRAN. Preliminary results from this study illustrate the importance of understanding the host rock properties and the initial/boundary conditions of the salt and multiphase fluid flow near the excavation site.</span></p><p> </p><p><em>Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.</em></p>


1996 ◽  
Vol 311 (6) ◽  
pp. 272-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany M. Kelso ◽  
Nabil Abou-Shala ◽  
Greta M. Heilker ◽  
Kristopher L. Arheart ◽  
Tracy S. Portner ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 2437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Wegel ◽  
Victoria Czempinski ◽  
Pao-Yu Oei ◽  
Ben Wealer

The nuclear industry in the United States of America has accumulated about 70,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste over the past decades; at present, this waste is temporarily stored close to the nuclear power plants. The industry and the Department of Energy are now facing two related challenges: (i) will a permanent geological repository, e.g., Yucca Mountain, become available in the future, and if yes, when?; (ii) should the high-level waste be transported to interim storage facilities in the meantime, which may be safer and more cost economic? This paper presents a mathematical transportation model that evaluates the economic challenges and costs associated with different scenarios regarding the opening of a long-term geological repository. The model results suggest that any further delay in opening a long-term storage increases cost and consolidated interim storage facilities should be built now. We show that Yucca Mountain’s capacity is insufficient and additional storage is necessary. A sensitivity analysis for the reprocessing of high-level waste finds this uneconomic in all cases. This paper thus emphasizes the urgency of dealing with the high-level nuclear waste and informs the debate between the nuclear industry and policymakers on the basis of objective data and quantitative analysis.


Author(s):  
Stephen C. Schwarz ◽  
Daniel E. Dietch

Collier County, Florida (“County”) is in the midst of developing an integrated waste management program. Unlike many counties, Collier County owns a landfill with sufficient long-term landfill capacity to last another 15 years. However, due to the Board of County Commissioner’s (“Board”) desire to have a 50-year solution for solid waste, the County has set upon a course to divert waste from the landfill to the maximum extent possible. In doing so, the County solicited long-term waste management solutions from private companies capable of processing the majority of the municipal solid waste generated in the County. Over the past two years, the County has considered several of these alternatives ranging from MSW composting to mass-burn waste-to-energy; however, based on an evaluation of a wide range of impacts, gasification was selected as the preferred alternative. With this focus, the County issued a Request for Proposal (“RFP”) in November 2001 for a design, build, own, operate, and finance gasification project. The County received three proposals in April 2002 in response to the RFP. To date, the County has completed the proposal evaluation process and has ranked the top two responsive firms: Interstate Waste Technologies (“IWT”) and Brightstar Environmental (Florida), LLC (“Brightstar”) based on experience, technical approach, business arrangement, and cost. If implemented, this project will be the only commercial gasification project operating in the United States. This paper will provide insight into various stages of the project, from development through to the current status of the project, as well as the strategic policy, financial, and technical considerations that make this opportunity a good fit for the County. An emphasis will also be placed on comparing and contrasting the benefits and drawbacks of each technology, such as processing methodology, cost, redundancy, and scalability.


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