VOLU E 10 U BER 4 FALL 1977 1 of Hi b-Leve Wastes THE COVER: Floyd Culler, as a By F. L. CULLER colleague recently said, is the man who knows the whole fission story, from the beginning to the final disposal. He has indeed been in on it 11 from the first, and has had an active hand in almost every detail of the From Consumption to Conservation technology of the fuel cycle. We are By CAROLYN KRAUSE privileged, then, to have the text of his talk as presented to the Salzburg meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency last May on high­ 18 Competition between Fo si and level waste management, beginning on page 1. By HOWARD I. BOWERS and JERRY G. DELENE Editor 27 ip of ERDA's Forests BARBARA LYON By BARBARA LYON Staff Writer CAROLYN KRAUSE 3 emistry at ORNL Consulting Editor A Short History ALEX ZUCKER By STANLEY CANTOR Publication Staff; Graphic Design/ Bill Clark; Technical Editing/ 4 Jeff McKenna; Typography/ Edna How Fast Can We Safely Burn Coal? Whittington; Makeup/ Mary East; Reproduction/ Bill West By CAROLYN KRAUSE The Review is published quarterly and distributed to employees and ITS others associated with the Oak Ridge DE National Laboratory. The editorial Books 9 office is in Building 4500-North, Take a Number 16 Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box X, Oak Ridge, Tennessee Lab Anecdote 24 37830. Telephone: (615) 483-8611, Achievement 39 Extension 3-6900 (ITS 850-6900). Awards and Appointments 48 OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORA OPERATED BY UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION • FOR THE ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION I IJC (/(( ()JIIf)(lll!jlll(j UriJ< /(' u '(/ '-, /(1/-('1) fre>JII th< rmi- dcln crcc//)!J ( >H '1 L>cptd!J DII<'< tor I lotJd ( Llll<'r ur \lmJ /...! JlJII totll< lldCIIUifJonul c ontcn II<<' on t1C 1<'<'' Pou < r uru, lh 1 tH J ( LJCi< -.,porhowd lnJ til<' Int<'r­ nntJonm \ton.Jr 1 li<'HJ!J • \ WII<!J fJc lcl ill .~llZIJW(J , \u-.,rnn 1 Jw ruJk (()/)(</Ill~ IlJ<Itl'(l(l/ J>fO"J(i< d I l(j ' () [{j()Jl J( ''-<' (/J )(I I J ( ,()( I I( I or ( JH I W ,(/ /Jt1 \ \I 1 '/utt c,f Butt< 11< 1'(1( J/1< ortlltl'<'c..,t IIi/)( tllt'HL! Management of High-Level Wastes By F. L. CULLER HE ULTIMATE DISPOSAL of high-level ciency. Major national programs are now being fission products and alpha-emitting wastes is designed to accomplish the needed work for the one of the unresolved, i.e., undemonstrated, technical demonstration of both waste manage­ technical problems of the nuclear fuel cycle. Sir ment and ultimate isolation. John Hill, in Tuesday's Round Table, stated that the technology exists for the concentration and But these technical solutions do not provide fixation of these wastes, but that we have not yet the full set of answers necessary for the decided how, when, or where they may be stored international acceptance of radioactive waste for the many centuries required for decay to isolation. We must pay much more attention to naturally occurring levels. Responsible govern­ public acceptability and the licensing process. mental agencies in the United States and in all This task is of primary importance and is not yet other countries recognize this technical defi- being adequately covered. FALL 1977 "... it is now time to raise the semitechnical aspects of waste disposal to the same leuel of Import 1nce that we haue assigned to the technology ' During this conference I have set down 2. suggested the protocols that will permit licen­ general impressions of what has been said and sing of waste facilities and methods; nor written about wastes. Briefly, I suggest that we 3. yet engaged in the analysis of what control and have audit procedures are necessary to assure 1. shown that, although it has yet to be fully adherence to acceptable procedures for short­ demonstrated, the technology exists to reduce and long-term sequestering of radioactive the short-and long-term risks of waste manage­ materials. ment and disposal to acceptable levels; Thus, I am rather comfortable about the state of 2. tacitly agreed that since waste disposal costs technology, but more than vaguely discontented are relatively small fractions of the cost of about the equally important problems associated nuclear generated electricity, it is economically with licensing and control that are so essential to practical to employ the safest approaches; public acceptance. I suggest that it is now time to raise the 3. implicitly agreed that no net profit will be made semitechnical aspects of waste disposal to the from wastes; rather, waste management and same level of importance that we have assigned to ultimate disposal is a tax upon electricity and the technology. other products of nuclear fission; 4. implicitly observed that final responsibility for wastes will rest with national governments, which will take responsibility for their long­ Wastes generated in the fuel cycle for fission term safe disposition; and reactors using plutonium recycle differ somewhat from those of other reactors such as natural­ 5. approached but not clarified the international uranium-fueled, high-temperature gas-cooled, and aspect of the waste problem: criteria and thorium-cycle reactors. However, they require the standards for judging safety and failure mode same management and disposal techniques. analysis that specifies fail-safe systems must be Fuel cycle wastes generated by one gigawatt­ approved internationally. year of electricity and conditioned and packaged We have not for transport and disposal are shown in Table 1. Wastes containing long-lived alpha-emitting 1. as member states, given a clear signal to the heavy elements can be considered separately from IAEA to proceed with the broad category of those free of such emitters. This distinction is work to control wastes; important because these elements and their decay 2 OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY Review Table 1. Fuel cycle wastes from production of 1000 MWyr of electricity daughters remain radioactive much longer than do all but a few fission products. The tailings from Thermal Volume Activitya Number of uranium ore milling are a third distinct category. Waste power8 (m3) (MCi) shipments (kW) They contain significant amounts of natural uranium decay daughters, but the radionuclide Spent fuel assemblies 13.9 172 970 11 concentration is less than that of other alpha­ Transuranium bearing wastes. High-level 3.1 170 960 2 (solidified) Chief among the alpha-bearing or trans­ Cladding hulls 2.7 2.0 10 2 uranium wastes are the high-level wastes from Intermediate-level 140 0.012 0.057 66 reprocessing of spent fuels-the first-cycle solvent solid Low-level solid 480 0.049 0.04 17 extraction waste, sometimes mixed with other process streams-which contain, besides the Nontransuranium Noble gases O.Q1 0.25 0.37 0.4 heavy elements, 99% of the nonvolatile fission 6 Iodine 0.05 1 X 10- 0.2 products. Other types of transuranium wastes are Carbon-14 2 X 10- s 4 the spent-fuel structural materials (cladding) and Fission products 0.35 0.018 7 X 10- and tritium various liquid and other solid wastes that arise (solidified) from mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel fabrica­ Low-level solid 2400 0.002 0.007 180 tion and reprocessing. The nontransuranium 4 Ore tai lings 42,000 5 X 10- 0.011 wastes are concentrates of ssKr, 129!, 14C, and a At the time of waste generation. tritium from reprocessing, and miscellaneous low­ level liquid and solid wastes from all fuel cycle operations. Table 2. Projected world nuclear capacity (GWe) From the projected world nuclear capacity through 2000 A.D. (Table 2) we can estimate fuel­ United States plus cycle waste generation for the same period (Table foreign CMEAa Calendar year Total non-CMEAa countries 3) in a nuclear economy based on these assump­ countries tions: Only LWRs will be used. Reprocessing of spent fuels will begin in 1982, the backlog of 1975 70 9 79 1980 165 17 102 unreprocessed fuel to be worked off by 1996. 1985 384 46 430 Plutonium is to be recycled beginning in 1983. 1990 698 106 804 2000 1540 395 1935 0 aCouncil for Mutual Economic Assistance (communist-bloc nations!. To m1mmize the types of waste to be handled, blending of compatible waste streams is desirable for subsequent treatment or for Table 3 World projection of fuel cycle wastes incorporation with high-level wastes. These Accumulated world wastes include solid residues from clarification Category Calendar inventory of solutions, dissolver off-gas scrubber so­ year Volume Activity 3 3 lutions, degraded solvents, aqueous solutions (10 m ) (MCi) from solvent cleanup, process equipment de­ Transuranium wastes contamination solutions, and laundry wastes. High-level wastes (solidified) 1990 6 56,000 Leached fuel cladding and partially decon­ 2000 28 200,000 taminated process equipment are other ex­ Clad 1990 5 1,500 2000 24 5,500 amples. Methods of liquid waste treatment Intermediate-level and 1990 100 45 include evaporation, reverse osmosis, precipita­ low-level wastes 2000 470 200 tion, filtration, and ion exchange. Gases are Nontransuranium wastes volatiles 1990 410 cleaned with scrubbers and filters. Treated 2000 4 1,800 liquid wastes that are not incorporated into Intermediate-level and low-level 1990 2,400 3 high-level wastes may be sorbed on such ma­ 2000 7,900 10 wastes terials as vermiculite and clays, then im­ Ore tailings 1990 350,000 4 2000 950,000 11 mobilized by mixing with concrete, bitumen, or ureaformaldehyde resin. FALL 1977 3 Opening session of the Inter­ national Con­ ference on Nuclear Power and its Fuel Cycle in the Fest­ spielhaus in Salz­ burg, Austria.