Figure 13. Deep Boreholes Disposal Concept

FiGuRe 13. DeeP BoReHole DisPosAl ConCePt63

requirements concerning retrievability at mined repository sites (at 40 Code of Federal Regulations [CFR] 191 and 10 CFR 60.111 (b)) are appropriate and should be retained. These requirements are intended to ensure that emplaced waste can be removed if the repository is not behaving as anticipated or if its performance is called into question for any reason prior to permanent closure62 — they are not intended for the purpose of retaining easy access to emplaced materials for possible later recovery and reuse. Past evaluations have indicated that a wide range of candidate mined repository sites in different geologic media (including granite, salt and volcanic tuff) could meet these existing retrievability requirements.

On the other hand, we recognize that the same level of retrievability may not be practical or necessary in the context of other disposal approaches, such as deep boreholes. In that case, related regulatory requirements and time periods can and should be reassessed as part of a larger evaluation of disposal system performance objectives.

On the subject of reversibility, the Commission views this attribute as an important part of what we believe should be a staged, adaptive approach to waste management and disposal in the United States more generally. The details of such an approach are discussed at length in chapter 6 of this report. For purposes of this discussion, it suffices to note that for a program to be adaptive there needs to be some capacity to reverse course, at least for a period of time. Flexibility of this kind is needed because implementing a disposal program will take at least several generations, during which technology and values are sure to evolve—albeit in unpredictable ways. While there is general consensus that we cannot rely on active management of nuclear waste disposal facilities over the many millennia of safety and environmental concern, an adaptive, staged approach requires this flexibility in the near term, when it is reasonable to have confidence that the institutional oversight and management capacity to implement responsible course corrections will be available. 4.5 Cost oF DisPosAl The Commission heard many comments regarding the costs of nuclear waste management generally and the costs of nuclear waste disposal in particular. While it is impossible to prepare detailed cost estimates for an integrated U.S. nuclear waste management system without knowing the specific facilities and sites that will be used for waste management and many other

Active near-surface flow

Mined MR Repository Sluggish flow or diffusion at depth Increasing groundwater salinity & density Disposal zone

Lateral hydraulic flow - 30m in 105 years pertinent details, some general conclusions about cost can be reached based on work performed for the Yucca Mountain project and other information.

A 2008 DOE life-cycle cost estimate64 arrived at a figure of $96.2 billion (in 2007 dollars) to license, construct, operate and close a repository at Yucca Mountain of sufficient size to dispose of a total of 122,000 metric tons of commercial and defense-origin spent fuel and high-level waste (note that the legislated capacity of Yucca Mountain is 70,000 metric tons until a second repository is in operation). The cost share assigned to the 109,000 tons of commerciallygenerated wastes assumed for disposal was about 80 percent of the $96.2 billion total, or approximately $77 billion.

That same year, DOE produced a detailed report “to evaluate whether the collection of the [nuclear waste] fee will provide sufficient revenues to offset the commercial utilities’ share of the total life cycle costs of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program.”65 The report concluded that the “the fee is adequate and [DOE] finds no reason to adjust the fee at this time.” This conclusion echoes past fee evaluations which, over two-plus decades of the nation’s nuclear waste management program, concluded that the current one-tenth of one cent per kilowatt-hour collected for spent fuel management would be sufficient to pay for disposal of the nation’s spent commercial reactor fuel.

It is important to stress that judgments about the adequacy of current fee payments to cover anticipated disposal costs are separate from the question of whether the current fee mechanism is working as intended to make fee payments available to fund the waste management program. The latter issue is the subject of chapter 8 of this report.

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5 . stoRAGe As PARt oF An inteGRAted WAste mAnAGement stRAteGy

storage is a necessary and important element of a comprehensive strategy for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle .

Implemented with a strong emphasis on safety and security and designed for compatibility with other steps in the fuel cycle, storage facilities have the potential to increase the flexibility, resiliency, and robustness of the system as a whole. Current arrangements for the storage of SNF in the United States, however, have evolved in an ad hoc fashion. Changes to the current approach are needed for several reasons: to support progress toward the development of disposal capability; to address immediate and growing financial and legal liabilities stemming from the federal government’s failure to meet its waste acceptance obligations in a timely manner; and to improve confidence in the safety and security of current storage arrangements, including addressing any new concerns that emerge in the wake of the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility.

Having investigated a range of issues related to the storage of spent fuel and HLW, the Commission has two central recommendations.

First, we recommend that the United States establish

a program that leads to the timely development of one or

more consolidated storage facilities. Access to consolidated storage capacity, even on a limited basis, would—when coupled with a viable transportation system—provide valuable flexibility as part of an integrated nuclear waste management system. Without this capacity the federal government will have essentially no physical capability to accept spent fuel for emergency or any other purposes until a permanent repository is in operation.

Second, we urge vigorous, ongoing efforts by industry

and by the appropriate regulatory authorities to ensure that all near-term forms of storage meet high standards of safety and security for the multi-decade-long time periods that

they are likely to be in use. Based on the evidence and safety record to date, the Commission sees no unmanageable safety or security risks with current storage arrangements. That said, active research, monitoring, and continued responsiveness