End Points for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste in Russia and the United States (2003) / Chapter Skim
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3. High-Level Radioactive Waste
3. High-Level Radioactive Waste
Pages 65-87
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From page 65... ...
The radiochemical plant operation started in 1976 and since then its staff has reprocessed spent fuel from different power reactors, as well as from transport and research reactors. During operation of the RT-1 plant, 2,380 tons of spent fuel have been received from domestic and foreign power plants for reprocessing.
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From page 67... ...
A partially completed second line of Plant "BB" was found to be unnecessary for production of weapons materials, and the facilities were adapted to create the radioisotope plant, which processes targets from the isotope-production reactors (Cochran et al.
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From page 70... ...
The largest outflow of radioactive waste into the environment was during the early operational period of the first radiochemical plant, known as Plant"B" (February 1949~. In accordance with the technology adopted at that time, the waste water from Plant"B" was poured directly into the Techa River, at an outflow up to 1,000 Ci per day.
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From page 71... ...
Liquid radioactive waste dumped into Karachai Lake caused contamination of underground water. The total amount of radioactive solutions supplied by the lake to groundwater is about 3.5 X 106 m3, which includes - 7 x 104 Ci Sr-90; 2 x 104 Ci-137 Cs; 6.6 x 105 Ci Ru-106; 1 x 105 Ci 3H; and a considerable amount of uranium, neptunium, and plutonium.
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From page 72... ...
Ninety percent of the waste is in the tank complex of the Radiochemical Plant. Located in a rock massif, the underground storage complex comprises nine stainless-steel-lined tanks, each with a capacity of 3,200 m3.
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From page 73... ...
Production of plutonium, uranium, and transuranium elements at the SCC results in generation of considerable amounts of liquid, solid, and gas-aerosol radioactive wastes. SCC has 50 storage facilities of liquid and solid radioactive wastes in its territory, including sites for deep injection of liquid radioactive wastes, which up to now have not impacted the biosphere, but present potential hazards for the environment.
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From page 74... ...
The main type of impact exerted on the environment by the local institutions are radionuclide gas-aerosol emissions to the atmosphere and radionuclide discharges with the waste waters to the Protva River, as well as radionuclide contamination of the subsurface groundwaters. Since IPPE began operations, 1,100 m3 of liquid radioactive wastes with a total activity of 1.63 x 105 Ci, and 2.3 x 104 m3 of solid radioactive wastes with a total activity 0.14 x 105 Ci have accumulated.
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From page 75... ...
Relatively small amounts (by volume) were produced in reprocessing of SNF from naval reactors at the INEEL, and in reprocessing of commercial SNF at the Western New York Nuclear Service Center (now called the West Valley Demonstration Project)
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From page 76... ...
Even today the current inventory of specific radionuclides and chemicals in the HLW tanks is not well known, although efforts are underway to obtain better estimates. During the early years of plutonium production at Hanford, HLW tank space was in short supply, so operators ran neutralized liquid HLW through a cascade of tanks, using gravity to separate the solid and liquid fractions.
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From page 77... ...
77 ~ ~ O cn O ._ .
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From page 78... ...
Groundwater under more than 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) of the Hanford Site is contaminated above drinking-water standards with radionuclides and chemicals, including tritium, strontium-90, technetium-99, iodine129, uranium, carbon tetrachloride, and chromium.
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From page 79... ...
eRadionuclides estimated to remain in plutonium production reactors and chemical separations facilities.
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From page 80... ...
The Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant was completed but was found to profound design flaws in 1974, and was not put into operation, but is used as a storage site for SNF. The Nuclear Fuel Services plant (also called the Western New York Nuclear Service Center and later the West Valley Demonstration Project)
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From page 81... ...
IF — 3.3.1 Nuclear Waste Underground Disposal and Disposition in the Russian Federation . .~ Geological disposal of solid and solidified HLW is considered in Russia as being economically, technically, and ecologically the most attractive approach to completion of the nuclear fuel cycle.
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From page 82... ...
After detailed studies, a site for construction of the underground research laboratory is to be chosen with the prospect of its subsequent conversion to the underground repository. Krasnoyarsk Region A team of experts representing Ministry of Atomic Energy institutions, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and other organizations has examined where to locate a HLW repository in the region of the Krasnoyarsk MCC.
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From page 83... ...
At present, investigations for choosing the most promising site for designing an underground research laboratory are being conducted. 83 Northwest Region An international team of experts, operating under the collaborative Russian-European Tacis project, completed a study in 2001 of issues related to interim storage of SNF and disposal of radioactive waste from operating and decommissioned nuclearpowered submarines in the northwest region of Russia, as well as from the Kola Nuclear Power Plant.
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From page 84... ...
Plateau basalts and alkaline basalts have appropriate physical and geochemical isolation properties and may be utilized as a host media for construction of a facility for SNF underground dry storage. The sharply rugged topography of the Artemovsky site with the altitudes varying from 600-700 m up to 1,200-1,250 m suggests that horizontal drifts, which can be used as access and emplacement tunnels, would be the most reasonable construction option for a storage facility.
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From page 85... ...
, is under Minatom administration. PIMCA is the only enterprise in Russia carrying out mining and processing of uranium ores, and it is in a region that is a promising site for an underground interim dry storage facility for SNF and other radioactive materials.
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From page 86... ...
Immobilization in borosilicate glass (vitrification) is the waste form that has already been selected for HLW at SRS and the West Valley Demonstration Project.
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From page 87... ...
The West Valley facility used a joule-heating melter to produce borosilicate glass to immobilize the waste from that reprocessing plant. As of August 2002, 275 canisters of vitrified HLW had been made and stored in racks in the High-Level Waste Interim Storage Facility.
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