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Fusion Science and Technology
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GAO: Clarification of HLW definition could save DOE billions
A clearer definition of what constitutes high-level radioactive waste could save the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management “tens of billions of dollars” in waste management costs and accelerate its cleanup schedule by decades, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
DOE-EM’s efforts to manage waste resulting from legacy spent nuclear fuel reprocessing have been hindered for decades by the ambiguity of the statutory definition of HLW as laid out in the Atomic Energy Act and Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the report states. While admitting that the DOE has taken steps to overcome this ambiguity, the GAO says that the department has not fully evaluated all available opportunities to treat and dispose of waste more economically as either transuranic or low-level radioactive waste.
Y. Ichmasa et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 775-778
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Biology, Health, and Radiation | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1035
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Heavy water (D2O) vapor release experiments were carried out in a greenhouse using deuterium as a substitute for tritium and uptake and loss kinetics of D2O in leaf of a tangerine tree and formation, translocation and retention of organically bound deuterium (OBD) in tangerine exposed to D2O under different growth stage were investigated. Rate constants of D2O uptake in leaves of tangerine were 0.2-1.11 hr-1 in the daytime release and 0.03-0.12 hr-1 in the nighttime release. Rate constants of D2O loss in leaf after daytime release were almost the same as those after the nighttime release. No significant differences in the half time of D2O loss were observed between daytime and nighttime releases, but those in winter experiments were about 6 times higher than those in summer ones. The retention of OBD of the edible part of tangerine at harvest was very low and OBD was 0.08% or 0.07% on average of D2O in air moisture in daytime or nighttime releases.
