Selecting a Site for a Radioactive Waste Repository: A Historical Analysis

Metlay, Daniel

doi:10.2113/gselements.12.4.269

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The geologic settings selected for operating and planned repositories in Russia and the United States are highly distinct. The United States has opted for disposal of wastes in "soft" rocks -tuff and salt -while Russia has chosen "hard" crystalline granite gneisses (Laverov et al 2016;Swift and Bonano 2016;Metlay 2016).…”

Section: The Us Repositories: Yucca Mountain and The Waste Isolation Pilot Plantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for US-Russian collaboration on the safe disposal of nuclear waste

Tracy¹,

Park²,

Plevaka

et al. 2021

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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The United States and Russia both possess large quantities of nuclear waste, generated during the production of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. To ensure that this radioactive material remains safely sequestered for tens of thousands of years or more, both countries plan to bury it in deep geologic repositories. However, US and Russian repository design strategies are highly distinct. For example, Russia plans to dilute waste in aluminophosphate glass, package waste in stainless steel containers, and bury waste in hard, crystalline granite gneiss rock. The US approach includes the use of borosilicate glass, multi-component superalloy containers, and porous volcanic tuff or highly-plastic bedded salt. The relative efficacies of these design choices remain uncertain. This represents a unique opportunity for applied, comparative study of various natural and engineered barriers to the release of radioactive materials. US-Russian collaboration and sharing of data on repository performance could provide a better technical basis for the long-term immobilization of nuclear waste.

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Section: The Us Repositories: Yucca Mountain and The Waste Isolation Pilot Plantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for US-Russian collaboration on the safe disposal of nuclear waste

Tracy¹,

Park²,

Plevaka

et al. 2021

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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“…As shown in Section 2, the U.S. program exhibits very specific characteristicsmost notably the influences of national politics, the complex role of states, and the quantitative approach to safety-to which the method has been tailored. Countries with most advanced nuclear waste disposal programs, such as Finland, Sweden and France, all have a very different political structure (Metlay, 2016). Moreover, as explained, STMCE is not a siting process method per se but, rather, an analytical and decision-support method that provides a procedures to evaluate the socio-technical performance and social conflict of alternative strategies of nuclear waste management.…”

Section: • Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of nuclear waste management strategies: Introducing the method

Diaz-Maurin¹,

Yu²,

Ewing³

2020

Preprint

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In the absence of a federal geologic repository or consolidated, interim storage in the United States, commercial spent fuel will remain stranded at some 75 sites across the country. Currently, these include 18 "orphaned sites" where spent fuel has been left at decommissioned reactor sites. In this context, local communities living close to decommissioned nuclear power plants are increasingly concerned about this legacy of nuclear power production and are seeking alternative options to move the spent fuel away from those sites. In this paper, we present a framework and method for the socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation (STMCE) of spent fuel management strategies. The STMCE approach consists of (i) a multi-criteria evaluation that provides an ordinal ranking of alternatives based on a list of criterion measurements; and (ii) a social impact analysis that provides an outranking of options based on the assessment of their impact on concerned socio-technical actors. STMCE can handle quantitative, qualitative or both types of information. It can also integrate stochastic uncertainty on criteria measurements and fuzzy uncertainty on assessments of social impacts. We provide a numerical example to illustrate the outputs generated by the STMCE method using published data. The STMCE method provides a new way to compare nuclear waste management strategies and support the search for compromise solutions.

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“…Acceptance of Čerkezovac as the RWMC might speed up the process of acceptance of the same location for the construction of the near-surface disposal site, which would mean lower transportation costs and reduction of other expenses. Disposal at a different location after long-term storage at the Čerkezovac site, would allow a modern and acceptable way for the disposal site selection, as has been performed in other countries (Metlay, 2016;Yun, 2008). Certainly, more than just one potential location can be identified, and, after the voluntaristic approach is applied (Chapman & Hooper, 2012;Kojo & Richardson, 2014;Ramana, 2013;Stefanelli, Seidl, & Siegrist, 2017), there is a higher likelihood of acceptance of the possible location by the local community and the Croatian people in general.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Site selection for Croatian low and intermediate level radioactive waste repository

Perković

Veinović

Leopold³

et al. 2020

Journal of Maps

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Radioactive waste disposal and management presents a unique problem at the Krško nuclear power plant as it is built and co-owned by the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Slovenia. Each country is responsible for the management of half of the low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF). So far, Slovenia has officially selected the site for LILW disposal and the Croatian programme has a single location left (since 1999), not officially approved as acceptable. This paper contains a new approach to site selection related to the implementation of GIS technology and presents a map of potential areas for LILW disposal including only the remaining Croatian location. It was constructed based on eleven layers that include natural characteristics and anthropogenic pressures. For the construction of the main map, detailed topological checks and spatial analysis of polygons have been made, reducing potential areas to be further evaluated.

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Selecting a Site for a Radioactive Waste Repository: A Historical Analysis

Cited by 21 publications

References 7 publications

Opportunities for US-Russian collaboration on the safe disposal of nuclear waste

Opportunities for US-Russian collaboration on the safe disposal of nuclear waste

Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of nuclear waste management strategies: Introducing the method

Site selection for Croatian low and intermediate level radioactive waste repository

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