National Academies Radioactive Waste Update

1
National Academies Radioactive Waste Update

• Kevin D. Crowley, Director
• Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board

2
Who We Are

• The National Academies
• National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
• National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
• Institute of Medicine (IOM)
• National Research Council (NRC)
• BRWM (1958), NRSB (2005)
• Private, nonprofit, Congressionally chartered to
  provide scientific and technological advice to
  the nation

3
Topics to be Discussed

• Three studies of potential interest
• Management of Certain Radioactive Waste Streams
  Stored in Tanks at Three Department of Energy
  Sites
• Risk and Decisions about Disposition of
  Transuranic and High-Level Radioactive Waste
• Improving the Characterization and Treatment of
  Radioactive Wastes for the Department of Energys
  Accelerated Site Cleanup Program
• Organizational change

4
Certain Tank Wastes

• Congressional request
• Section 3146 of the Ronald Reagan National
  Defense Authorization Act of 2005
• Evaluate and make recommendations to improve
  DOEs plans for disposing of certain radioactive
  wastes at Savannah River Site (SRS), Hanford, and
  Idaho National Laboratory (INL)
• Interim report on SRS in July 2005
• Final report on all sites in January 2006

5
Congressional Charge

• Waste streams addressed in study
• Stored in tanks at Hanford, INL, SRS
• Exceed Class C concentration limits (10 CFR 61)
• To be disposed of onsite

6
Congressional Charge

• Study to evaluate
• DOEs understanding of waste characteristics
• Additional actions needed by DOE to comply with
  10 CFR 61 performance objectives
• Adequacy of monitoring plans for disposal sites
• Technology alternatives for managing wastes
• Technology gaps
• Any other matters directly related to the subject
  matter of the study

7
Committee Roster

• Frank L. Parker, CHAIR, Vanderbilt Univ.
• Hadi Abu-Akeel, AMTENG Corp
• John S. Applegate, Indiana Univ. School of Law
• Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon Univ.
• Paul P. Craig, Univ. of California, Davis
  (emeritus)
• Allen G. Croff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  (retired)
• Patricia J. Culligan, Columbia Univ.
• Ken Czerwinski, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Rachel Detwiler, Braun Intertec Corp
• Edwin E. Herricks, Univ. of Illinois at
  Urbana-Champaign
• Tissa Illangasekare, Colorado School of Mines

• Milton Levenson, Bechtel International (retired)
• Paul A. Locke, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
  Public Health
• Michael H. Mobley, Mobley Radiation Consulting
• Dianne R. Nielson, Utah Dept. of Environmental
  Quality
• Ken E. Philipose, AECL Chalk River
• Alfred P. Sattelberger, Los Alamos National
  Laboratory
• Anne E. Smith, Charles River Associates
• Leslie Smith, Univ. of British Columbia
• Don Steeples, University of Kansas

8
Risk and Decisions

• Requested and sponsored by DOE-EM
• Focus on approaches for incorporating risk into
  DOE decision making for disposition of TRU and
  HLW
• The baseline disposition pathway for these wastes
  involves retrieval, treatment, and deep geologic
  disposal
• Nearly 650,000 m3 TRU and HLW
• Over 60 billion and 70 years required to
  complete baseline activities under current
  schedules
• Report issued in February 2005

9
Statement of Task

• Provide recommendations on implementation of
  risk-based approaches in DOEs cleanup program
• Key elements of a risk-based approach
• Criteria for risk assessment
• Potential alternatives to geologic disposal for
  disposition of low-hazard waste
• Compatibility with current regulatory regimes
• Knowledge and technology gaps for implementation
• Broader implications, if any, for disposition of
  other EM wastes
• Apply risk-based approaches to selected DOE waste
  streams to assess their practical usefulness

10
Committee Roster

• David E. Daniel, University of Illinois at
  Urbana-Champaign, Chair
• John S. Applegate, Indiana University School of
  Law-Bloomington, Vice Chair
• Lynn Anspaugh, School of Medicine, University of
  Utah
• Allen G. Croff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  (ret.)
• Rodney C. Ewing, University of Michigan, Ann
  Arbor
• Paul A. Locke, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
  Public Health

• Patricia A. Maurice, University of Notre Dame
• Robin Rogers, University of Alabama
• Anne E. Smith, Charles River Associates
• Theofanis G. Theofanous, University of
  California, Santa Barbara
• Jeffrey Wong, California Department of Toxic
  Substances Control

11
Selected Findings Recommendations

• The nation needs a mechanism for considering
  alternatives to deep geologic disposal for those
  wastes that may not warrant such isolation based
  on the risks they pose and the risks and costs
  involved in retrieving and disposing of them
• Risk is a good starting point for such
  considerations, but other factors may be at least
  as important deciding what disposition path to
  use, so a risk-informed decision process should
  be used
• Such decisions, and the analyses and discussions
  that support those decisions, should involve DOE,
  regulators, and interested and affected outside
  parties in an iterative and cooperative decision
  process

12
Selected Findings Recommendations

• The process would be more credible if an agency
  other than DOE had the authority to approve or
  reject DOE's proposals for alternate disposal
  paths
• Congress, DOE, U.S. EPA, and U.S. NRC should take
  actions as necessary to enable DOE to implement
  effectively the risk-informed approach
  recommended in the report
• DOE should form an authoritative, credible, and
  reasonably independent group to revamp the way
  DOE goes about implementing risk-informed
  approaches applied to waste disposition decisions

13
Accelerating Characterization and Treatment of
DOE Wastes

• Requested and sponsored by DOE-EM
• Focus on large DOE sites (Hanford, INL, Oak
  Ridge, SRS)
• Study motivated by DOEs desire to improve the
  utilization of facilities and capabilities across
  its sites to reduce cleanup schedules, costs, and
  risks to workers and nearby residents, both now
  and in the future
• Final report issued in February 2005

14
Statement of Task

• Identify opportunities for improving waste
  characterization and treatment capabilities
• Make more effective use of existing capabilities
  and facilities for waste characterization,
  treatment, or disposal
• Eliminate self-imposed requirements that have no
  clear technical or safety basis
• Improve characterization and treatment
  capabilities to achieve step efficiency
  improvements or to treat orphan waste streams
• Recommend technology development and
  demonstration investments that EM should make
  over the near term to achieve these improvements
• Focus on waste streams for which current
  characterization, treatment, or disposition
  pathways are difficult and (or) expensive, and
  for which improvements would help reduce costs,
  schedules, and hazards to workers, public, or the
  environment

15
Committee Roster

• Milton Levenson, Bechtel International (retired),
  Chair
• Cynthia Atkins-Duffin, Lawrence Livermore
  National Laboratory
• Patricia J. Culligan, Columbia University
• Robin Dillon-Merrill, Georgetown University
• Lloyd A. Duscha, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
  (retired)

• Thomas Gesell, Idaho State University
• Carolyn L. Huntoon, CLH Associates, Inc.
• Barry Scheetz, Pennsylvania State University
• Laura Toran, Temple University
• Raymond G. Wymer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  (retired)

16
Recommendations

• DOE should aggressively pursue opportunities to
  simplify and expedite waste characterization,
  treatment, and disposal by
• Work with the responsible classification offices
  to declassify, to the extent possible, classified
  materials declared as wastes
• Better utilize the waste removal provisions of
  CERCLA, and
• Develop more consistent interpretations among
  sites of waste acceptance requirements and
  accelerated cleanup objectives

17
Recommendations

• DOE should consider managing the following
  facilities as corporate assets for the
  characterization and treatment of both mainstream
  and special-case or orphan wastes
• Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) incinerator
  at Oak Ridge
• High-level waste calciner at Idaho
• Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Facility (AMWTF)
  at Idaho
• Vitrification Facilities at Savannah River and
  Hanford
• Existing groundwater-monitoring wells at all
  sites
• H-Canyon at Savannah River
• T-Plant at Hanford

18
Recommendations

• EM should continue developing and deploying new
  or improved technologies that address limitations
  in current characterization and treatment
  capabilities. The committee recommends
  investments in
• Steam reforming,
• No-consequence TRU shipping containers,
• Improved high-level waste vitrification, and
• State-of-the-art sensors for environmental
  monitoring

19
Recommendations

• For waste that EM considers leaving in place, the
  committee recommends that EM broaden the use of
  the cocooning concept as currently applied to
  the Hanford reactors
• Applied to certain wastes for which cleanup cost
  and risk to workers exceeds benefits, the
  cocooning concept provides a scientifically sound
  framework to
• Stabilize wastes or contamination in place for
  now
• Monitor until radioactive decay, other natural
  processes, or new technologies make ultimate
  cleanup feasible or unnecessary
• Adapt to new knowledge and
• Make responsibilities clear to all stakeholders